The Man in the White Suit
by Squirrel Assassin
Summary: Gohan's bout with sanity lengthens to the deepest pits of surreality. A man in a white suit gives Gohan a job that could mean the fate of the world. Is Gohan's mind telling him this, or is it a reality which everyone bisbelieves?
1. The Man in the White Suit

The Man in the White Suit  
The whole world is fucking crazy. If someone told me anyone on this planet was actually sane, I wouldn't believe them one bit. Because the whole world is nuts, bordering on the line between reality and contradiction of their own beings, I'm the only sane one. At least, that's what I used to think, before I met him.  
  
Before I met the man in the white suit, everything for me was pretty normal- as normal as it can get for someone like me. Oh, sure, being one of the most powerful beings in the universe did put a damper on your normal rating- but it wasn't too bad for me. Besides, I grew up being powerful. It's just my nature. But, for some reason, it just. . .changed. I don't really know how to explain it in reasonable terms without you thinking I'm completely nuts, but I'll try my best.  
  
The man in the white suit, as I recall seeing him for the first time, would've caused me to shit my pants, had I been just a normal human being. He has this kind of creepy air about him- it's hard to explain, really- but I can tell you what he wore when I saw him. He was clothed in a totally white tuxedo, whiter than milk. His pants were very business like, and also white- he wore a white boulder hat, the kind you might see some English people wear. It always covered his eyes- I never saw his eyes for a good while. His sleeves were rolled up and bunched around his lanky, pale elbows. It exposed his pale, almost clammy skin, and his bony, yet unusually young looking, hands. One of the hands- the right, I think- held a white ivory cane, which he leaned on with his body weight.  
  
Actually, the only thing that wasn't white on him was his black vest that was covered around his chest. In the middle of the chest, there was a small white button that outshined all the other white buttons on the man's suit.  
  
The man spoke with a soft, growling tone, but it was kind, gentle- like a sweet grandfather's. I never knew my grandfather on my Dad's side, but that is totally beside the point.  
  
I met him on a long, lonely stretch of sidewalk, late at night on the corner of 5th and 6th avenues. I was walking along the dark grey slabs, tall street lamps illuminating parts of the walkway to give it an orange glow every couple of yards. The lamps passed over my form, illuminating my otherwise dark and depressed figure against the cold night. I remember that on that cold night, I wore a long dark brown trench coat given to me as a present last Christmas. It waved in the wind I was creating, an otherwise windless night.  
  
I happened to have a lot on my mind that night. I thought about many things- the anniversary of my Father's death, Videl, crime fighting, and my little brother. He was sick with the flu, and no one knew how he could have caught it. Sayains- even half sayains- almost never caught any diseases, especially not the flu. Bulma wanted to run some experiments on him, but he refused. I had to hold him down so that she could extract the shot from Goten's arm, and run the tests. He screamed bloody murder as Bulma took the shot, which to me I thought to be quite strange since it should barely even be hurting him. But whatever, I thought. He was probably just afraid of syringes and sharp objects, just like my father used to be.  
  
Videl had had some very serious problems going on in her life lately that deeply concerned me. Apparently, since her father had won yet another tournament, he had started to bring home a lot of one-night-stands. It raked on Videl's nerves, what I had heard from her. She said that she couldn't study, or even go to sleep at night because of all the sick sounds her father would make in the room down the hall. It had gotten so bad that one night she even flew over to my house and slept in the guest bed room- not that I minded- but it just scared me that it could get that bad.  
  
I might have to do something about it if it gets any worse. She had, at one point, needed a shoulder to cry on. Then I knew something had to be done, but I couldn't do anything about it right now. The crime rate was devastatingly high in the city right now; murderers ran rampant, robbers looted banks on a daily basis. . .It was tearing me and Videl to shreds, and by the end of the day we were too exhausted to do our homework. In fact, I'm pretty sure I had to stop a gang of thieves that had taken over a civilian bus just this morning by my self, because Videl had not gotten any sleep again from her father's loud "noises", and had flown home just to get some sleep.  
  
I had offered to start tutoring her, because of all the class she was missing. After a few days of negotiating, we finally came to an agreement. I would come and tutor her on the weekends, but only late at night, because her father would start yelling up a storm if he ever found out a guy that was a "weakling" came into his house without his permission. I usually ended up staying the night, but it was okay with my mother, because she kept assuming that Videl and I were more than what she thought. But we weren't- we were just simply good friends, that's all.  
  
So that's where I was headed, to Videl's house so I could help her with her studies. I think we were doing History tonight, studying World War II. Well, I brought my agenda and books with me-they were inside a small blue backpack that hung over my shoulder- so I'm sure I could figure it out when I got there, but I still didn't know why I was walking there. Maybe I was just accumulating a taste for walking since I had started to do it so much lately. But there I was, walking around in the cold in the middle of October, heading to a friend's house so I could help her with her studies. But, that cold night reminded me of how I felt 7 years ago.  
  
The thoughts of my Father's death came into being. I missed him so much- he was like an angel to me, a kind of savior. He loved me and my mother so much- he was so selfless. But then, I guess it sickened me to some degree, because every time I thought of him I thought of Cell, also. That green grasshopper was the focal point of my hate- I spilled it out to him when I fought against his wrath. He was the single reason I had become something of a shell; a boy that had to become a man all too quickly. I grew up and had to learn the rules of war when I was merely 3 years old- Most boys in Africa don't even get stuck in their guerilla wars until they're at least 9 or 10.  
  
But there I was, training myself how to kill a living creature at 3 years old. It was disgusting, as I now look down at it- but then, it also saved the human race, saved the universe, even. But it wasn't like I actually cared whether a few planets were blown up or totally incinerated- the thoughts just never really crossed my mind as being important. But now, they seemed almost like the most important thing in the world to me, besides Videl's problems.  
  
And to top it all off, the anniversary was only three weeks away, which meant my mother would begin to grieve soon. I hated it when she grieved. She just loped around the house, whimpering and basically not giving a shit about anything. My little brother never understood why, exactly, she did this; he just knew his father died a long time ago.  
  
As I walked down the street, I came to a stop at the corner, looking across to where Videl's mansion lay, and to my left, where a few blocks down I could see the dark yellow dome of the Capsule Corporation mansion, where rectangular lights lined across its walls in small curves. Above the mansions that lined 5th and 6th avenues was a blanket of stars, brilliantly lighted despite the fact that the lights were supposed to be blocking some of them out.  
  
As I looked on, I could just barely make out a shooting star flying across the sky, a small white cosmic tail flailing behind the ball of light. I smiled and thought of happier times at its site- I even remembered an old wife's tale that if you wished for something when you saw a shooting star, that wish would be granted. What the hell, I thought. I could just give it a try. But of course, you have to say it out loud, so that everyone can hear you.  
  
"I wish," I began, "That everything would get better." Then the shooting star disappeared from my view. I looked down, and there, standing in a pool of light from one of the street lamps, was a man in a white suit, leaning on a cane, chewing on a toothpick. I didn't know where he came from. I hadn't heard any foot steps, or any kind of energy signal that I would've picked up from him. He scared me slightly.  
  
He spoke first. "Hello, there, stranger," He said in a sweetly polite tone, bowing slightly, his right arm still balanced on the cane. I looked on at him in awe, his figure totally lanky and bony in appearance.  
  
"Hello," I answered, "How are you, sir?" I asked, eyeing the man in the white suit with a dreaded suspicion. Who was he? Where'd he come from? Arousing suspicions arose in my chest, as he pulled up from his bow and began to walk in an awkward gait towards me.  
  
"You know, son, you shouldn't think so much," He recalled from my mind that I later found out, but at the moment it had scared me just a bit. Maybe, as I had thought that night, perhaps he could read minds like Master Roshi was able to do at one time?  
  
"Why shouldn't I think so much?" I retorted, his sentence not making much sense.  
  
"You might bust a nerve." He was about an arm's length from me now, his eyes still covered by the white hat. I laughed inwardly at his answer. You couldn't possibly bust a nerve by thinking too hard!  
  
"You laugh now, but just wait until you actually do," The man said, cracking a smile that revealed white teeth. Now I knew I was getting a bit freaked out.  
  
"Why do you insist on talking to me? I have to get somewhere," I said, and tried to sidestep around him, but he moved in front of me.  
  
"Kind sir, please stay a moment and let me talk to you," He smiled, and his white teeth made a grinding noise, like to blocks being clapped against each other. I scrunched up my nose at the sound, and replied.  
  
"No, I don't have the time to be talking to someone that I don't even know," I said, and made a motion of going around his right side. He lifted his cane swiftly in the air, and stopped it right at my chest. I was slightly taken aback by the speed of the action.  
  
"Maybe you do know me?" He said quietly, too quietly. . .I reached in through my mind to try and think of a man in a totally white suit, but nothing came. I was positive I had never seen or known of this man before.  
  
"I'm pretty damn sure I don't know you, sir, now please step aside so that I can get to where I need to go," I demanded with a forced nice tone. He made a movement, stepping aside from me, and to my right.  
  
"I think you do, good sir. You'll know me, I promise." He said, and I think he tapped me on the shoulder, as a friendly gesture I think, with his cane. I turned around to say something to him, I forget what, but he wasn't there. I glanced around, and there was no sign of him in any direction. It was like he didn't exist. Odd, I thought. No one could just do that, not without knowing some kind of instant transmission. Maybe it was a ghost? Oh, of course not. I know there aren't any ACTUAL ghosts- those things are just silly fairy tales and horror stories.  
  
As I turned around, back to facing the way I actually needed to go, the man in the white suit was in front of me again, just as if he had been standing there the entire time. He smiled, and a shadow took away the vision of seeing his eyes as he bent his head slightly downward.  
  
"Do you know me now?" He asked, acting like he was totally unaware of anything. I thought to myself, of course not, I don't know anything about you. He laughed. His laugh had a nasty clicking sound to it, and was horribly hoarse.  
  
"You know that I'm wearing a white suit, don't you?" And at that, I came to the conclusion that yes, he could read my mind. Now I was totally scared- this man was prying into my private thoughts, and he probably now knew so much more than he should.  
  
"Don't pry into my mind, old man. Now leave me alone." I hissed, and walked by him onto the road. He made the clicking laugh again, and I turned around to see that he was gone again, without a single trace. I growled in annoyance at his disappearing act. I turned back around, and saw in a pool of orange light, a white ivory cane lying in the middle of the road. The man in the white suit must've dropped it.  
  
"You'll know me, sir," The voice echoed in my brain, and at first he might be using telepathy as I looked at the cane, but decided against it. That was a fool-hardy notion; I only knew of a few people that could do that, my father and the Kais. So of course, it bothered me. But to no avail, I had this wanting build up in me to grab that cane. What could I have done? Maybe I should've just left the cane there, and this whole ordeal would've never happened, and he would've just came back, gotten it and I would forget in a few months this ever even happened.  
  
But of course, I picked it up. It was very light weight, and very smooth. I held it in both of my hands, surveying it. It almost felt like a quarter staff, it was so light and swift to me. It kind of felt like a sword, even. That's a silly thought, thinking a cane is a sword; I'm sure I played with an old cane of my great grandfather's when I was little. Of course, that was only when I was actually relieved of my studies. I had become a master at Algebra by the time I was 10. Calculus was a simple task for me.  
  
I took the cane in my left hand, and let it walk with me as I tread my way across the road. I had at last reached 6th street, the street on which my best friend, Videl, resided. You could clearly see her titanic mansion from even here, and her yard boundaries reached out to end at a large white marble wall, about 7 or 8 feet high. I walked beside the wall, my newly found cane clicking with me. A small wind picked up behind me, fluttering my coat. I looked up, and saw the three story tall mansion in its full glory, an eccentric statue that had to be at least thirty feet high mounting the top of the patio, its granite mouth agape in happiness and the victory sign strutted out for everyone to see on the statue's figure. Below it, a large, Victorian style home that had a look akin to the President of the United State's house look to it, only its front patio extended in a semi-circle with two sets of stairs twisting slightly on both sides to meet in a courtyard. The courtyard's grass was green and thick with life- even if it was astro-turf- and in the middle it had a long three foot deep man- made pool that stretched for about 100 feet. In the middle of the pond was a statue of four beautiful women sitting in a square formation, pouring from golden pots water that splashed slowly into the pond.  
  
It was beautiful, especially at night when all the lights of the courtyard were lit up- it made for a very surreal, almost Greek-era feel. But all in all, I knew Videl hated it- it just further glorified her father's narcissistic behaviors, and his eccentricity often got the best of her temper. Well, I wouldn't have to worry much about that, I thought, as a plan was slowly forming in my mind to finally help Videl get rid of the idiotic man that she hated with every inch of her being, but in a legal way, of course.  
  
I came to the black barred gate, which read out in the bars, "SATAN HOME" with golden iron. I swiftly jumped over it without even touching it, and did not feel to land on Mr.Satan's lawn, because it was laced with laser triggers that if set off, would almost definitely alert him to my presence. I silently floated over the lawn, and began to pass by the pond, whose maidens still poured the clear water into the pool. I put my hands into my trench coat pockets, feeling slightly cold. The cane hung on my left arm, smacking against my arm every once in a while. I reached the end of the pool, and looked up to see to the left on the top floor, a lighted window opening up to reveal Videl, dressed in her normal attire- a purple shirt under a white sporting tank top and some blue jeans- waving to me happily as she walked onto her own private patio.  
  
I waved back nicely, happy as I ever could be. I do believe, although I think I deny it so much when I'm around my other friends- I feel just so much happier when I'm around Videl. That's why it bothered me so when I found out about her troubles. But so I came to her house, and gently floated myself up to her balcony, and she took a step back to give me room as I put my feet on the cement flooring. I smiled with happiness, and began to speak with her.  
  
"Hello, Videl," I started, "How are ya feeling tonight?" I often lost my good grammar when I spoke to her. She sighed, and smiled at me with a sad glint in her eye.  
  
"I really couldn't tell you, but if it had to be something, I would say. . . I feel like shit." She said in a dead pan voice, and I knew it was her father again, and I began to take my coat off even though it was cold. I set the cane down on a small cushioned bench on the edge of the balcony, and she immediately took notice to it.  
  
"Where'd that cane come from?" She asked, "Did you bag an old man and steal his cane?" I laughed at her sarcastic joke, and thought to myself, she's half right. I slipped my coat fully off, and laid it by the cane.  
  
"Well, sort of. This man in a white suit kept on bugging me on my way here, and when he left- and when I mean he left I mean he disappeared," She arched an eyebrow, "and this cane was laying in the middle of the road. So I picked it up." She looked at me with bewilderment, and went over to her window doors, and opened them.  
  
"He disappeared? Why would you even be talking to this guy in the first place? I thought you flew," She said, walking into her large, almost apartment like room. I walked with her inside.  
  
"I decided that I would fly three fourths of the way, then walk the rest. I hope you didn't mind that it took me longer," I apologized. She shrugged it off, and said it was okay.  
  
I liked Videl's room. It was almost a mirror image of a high priced apartment in Manhatten, a ceiling that reached high into the air and curved into a white dome that had a very beautiful mural of space, which had been specifically designed to change according to the varying sunlight. Since it was about 9 o' clock, the stars had begun to twinkle brilliantly, and in the middle was a giant white circle, with a deathly beautiful glow. I, and basically the entire population of the Earth, knew it to be the moon.  
  
The rest of the room was quite normal, with clothes randomly thrown about the bedroom, and a large double-king sized bed that had huge white comforters and white sheets on it. Well, of course living in the lap of luxury was nice, it was nice to a lot of people, but as I walked in I started to figure out that she really did hate it. On the opposite side of the bed was a large dresser with a vanity mirror- although Videl almost never used anything of the sort-so it was pretty clean around the dresser. About 15- 20 feet away from the bed was a television set, a large one, in fact. I know that Vegeta had a bigger one at Capsule Corp in his and Bulma's room, but this one was still about 42 inches wide, and had almost no dust on it, because the maids tended to clean everything until it wasn't even there.  
  
The carpet, as it remained throughout most of the house, had a soft, feathery feel to it, and was a nice navy blue color. We exited the bedroom, and into a mini hallway that had a picture on each side of it. The hallway itself was only about 10 feet long. But the pictures really did strike a chord with me; they were pictures of a very pretty lady, holding a toddler with raven black hair, bouncing the child on her knee. The scene was very happy, and it laid to my right on the lighted hall.  
  
But on the other side, lay a horridly depressing figure. There sat Videl, only 6 years younger than before, sitting on a bench in the park- now that I think about it, it was that same bench in the other picture- and her arms were draped around the sides of the bench, and her head hung low. She was wearing a funeral type dress, and if you looked oh so closely- I decided not to do that until later- you could see small streaks of dried tears on her face.  
  
We exited the hallway, and into her computer room. The room mainly consisted of 4 things. A large desk with a very, very nice computer on it; an artist's table in the corner with some paper sitting on it and a lamp that overlooked it all, a big table with comfy looking chairs on each side, and a small couch in a far-off corner.  
  
"Well, make yourself at home; my father isn't here tonight." Videl said with a great relief in her tone. Oh, she worried me so, that was for sure.  
  
"Okay. Where is he, if you don't mind me asking?" I said, slipping the bag off of my shoulder and thumping it on the table. Videl slid a chair out and sat in it, and pulled herself into the table before telling me.  
  
"He's on a 'business trip', although I bet he's probably just knocking up one of our maids." She said, looking over to a large bay window, that showed the backyard- but you couldn't really make it out because it was dark. I looked down at my bag, and opened it up as I sat down in my chair.  
  
"You need to do something about that guy." I commented, pulling out a green book entitled "History of the World". Videl snorted, and looked away at the computer. A screen saver that had a picture of me and her goofing off painted a happier portrait than I'm sure she was feeling at the time.  
  
"I can't, because he's the only family I have left. And I can't even get out of here because I haven't finished school yet, or anything," She sighed. I decided to skip the subject, and move on to academic matters.  
  
"Well, let's just focus on our studies right now and we can deal with Mr. Narcissist later." That pulled a laugh out of her, so I knew I was beginning to get her on her good side. She suddenly perked up, and it made me jump just a bit.  
  
"Oh, Gohan! We're doing Astronomy tonight, remember? Not History," She said, almost happy about it. Well, I can't believe I forgot that- but astronomy was my best subject, so she would really get good help there. I knew a lot about astronomy- I mean, your own father doesn't come from the stars, and you don't have a man that you see basically every day that's been all over the universe and not know a few things than normal people do.  
  
"Oh, I forgot to bring my book! Do you have yours?" I asked her. She blushed just a bit.  
  
"No, I left mine at the school. Now what are we going to do? I don't have any idea as how I'm going to learn those damned constellations and their histories before the Exam on Cell Day in three weeks!" She harrumphed, and placed her chin on her hand, looking at the picture of us goofing off again. An idea struck me, that I had never thought of before; of course, in due time I would've thought of it, but it's better to have it come to me now than later on.  
  
"Why don't we use the computer and look it up on Vegeta's website?" I offered. Videl looked at me funny.  
  
"Vegeta's got a website? Hah, now I've heard everything," She laughed, and got up from her seat. I got up as well, and followed her the short distance to the computer. She sat down in one of the leather rolling chairs- I did the same- and she wiggled the mouse to make the screensaver disappear to a desktop that had several first-person-shooter game icons on it, and a wallpaper of her favorite web comic, "8-bit theater", displayed in the background.  
  
She double-clicked on the icon that said "Internet Explorer", and the window instantly appeared to the homepage of mine, which I updated frequently (whenever I had the time.) Videl clicked on the web URL and looked at me.  
  
"What's the name?" She asked, and typed in "w w w." real quick. I thought for a moment, reaching in a bit on the back of my head to pry out the web URL. It was, ahh, something sayainpride/index.htm, or something. Oh, now I remembered, the site's name had come back to me in a good flash.  
  
"It's w w w.f r e e w e b s.c om/ sayainpride/index.htm" I spelled it out to her, and she swiftly typed it in, and pressed the enter button. The site almost immediately popped up, and revealed a very dark looking scenario for a web site, with a picture that Vegeta had brought from one of Frieza's ships, a portrait of the planet Vegeta. It struck a chord in my heart, a kind of remembrance of my race. It was a beautiful planet, but I immediately saw that Videl was confused by the portrait, and the words above it, that said in fancy green cursive letters, "My Home Planet".  
  
"What the hell?" She muttered, and I quickly intervened. I would let her know, sooner or later, but not now.  
  
"Uhh, it's just a silly joke Vegeta came up with," I choked, rubbing my hand against the back of my neck, because Videl had shot me a suspicious look.  
  
"What? More secrets, Mr. Sayaman?" She accentuated the last word, and caused more panic with me.  
  
"No, no! It's just a prank that he and Bulma came up with, because they're studying that planet," I thought of a lie quickly, "and they thought they'd post up studies about it as they went along." She looked at me a bit more, as if prying information out of my eyes, and then shrugged and turned back to her work. I breathed an inward sigh of relief, and she went and clicked on a link that said "Star Charts" and within one second the page popped up, a series of star charts in chronological order arranged from left to right. In the project, I remember, you had to make your own star charts, and name the stars you saw then you had to find what they actually were on the internet, and if possible, use a telescope to find one of the planets.  
  
"What's this?" Videl pointing at one of the pictures with a point of light encircled by a red triangle, and a line coming from it that said at its peak, "Blast Radius Zero".  
  
"I heard Vegeta talking about that. He says that it's a star or planet that blew up, and its light is just now getting here. It's really quite interesting to look at with a telescope." I explained, knowing exactly what it was. But I wouldn't tell her, not yet. But I would, soon, because every day it seemed like she kept on finding out something new.  
  
"Do you think we could use these and go into my observatory to look for them?" Videl asked, looking at me. I said of course, Bulma wouldn't mind.  
  
"Wait, I forgot. My observatory is going under repairs, and I can't use it," She cursed, and sighed in sadness. This was going to get to her, I knew it, so I had to think of something fast.  
  
"Well, I guess we could use Bulma's, she's just down the street," Videl almost immediately brightened up, her eyes sparkling their brilliant blue. I really liked her eyes- they just reminded me of happier times.  
  
"That's a great idea, Gohan! But do you think she'd actually let us use her telescope? It's almost 10:00 o' clock," Videl glanced at her watch, and the digital clock ticked off at 9:57. I nodded a yes.  
  
"Of course she would! She's a night owl anyways," I said, and I swear it was the practical truth. That woman could stay up until 5 o' clock without even blinking. One time, before father died, she stayed up until 7 o' clock in the morning fixing Android # 16.  
  
"Well," Videl began as she clicked out of the internet and began to shut the computer down, "I guess me and you are going to go take a walk." She lifted herself from the chair, as I did the same from my chair, and followed her into her bedroom. She opened up a closet that was situated to the left of the television set, and reached in. Videl, from what I could see and knew at that moment, pulled out a navy blue nylon Adidas jacket, and pulled it on to her, one arm at a time. She zipped it up, and shifted it so it wouldn't be uncomfortable. I stood there, looking outside, and I mentioned that I'd be right back, and I was going to get my coat.  
  
I went outside to the patio, and grabbed my trench coat, but the cane wasn't there when I got outside.  
  
= = = = = A/N: That's the end of chapter one, and I must say it's the longest chapter I've ever written for any story, ever. And it's going to continue like that, but don't expect another chapter for about a week. It'll be a weekly thing, I'll try to do that.  
  
Please give thoughtful comments and suggestions, and tell me how you like it. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
I looked on with a sense of shock and horror, and for a moment my jaw went slack. The cane had disappeared from existence, as I assumed since I had looked all over the patio for it. I looked under the seat, under my coat, around the other benches, plants; it was no where to be found. It puzzled me, and I looked over the edge to see if a wind had picked up and moved it over.  
  
It wasn't on the ground, either, as I could tell what with my Sayain level of seeing. But I suppose, it didn't bother me. No, not much. I don't think, at that point in my life, I could really care about a cane going missing. In fact, I think I might've seen it glint right under the patio in the starlight. So, I knew I wasn't crazy. It was just under the patio, and I'd get it later tonight, or maybe tomorrow.  
  
I looked up at the stars again. I heard Videl ruffling through her drawers in the background, but they were quickly muffled out by the sounds of the stars twinkling. Yes, stars have a sound, but only if you listen carefully. It's a beautiful sound, and can be so wonderful to your ears. They danced with each other, although you couldn't see it, they still danced. It was a slow dance, though. Just a nice, slow dance, a dance to the beautiful music they made.  
  
Exactly the opposite of my mind, but their dances calmed, soothed me. Just like Videl. It is an amazing feeling, when you hear the stars. It sounds almost like the ocean, but muted- Oh, you can't even describe what the stars sound like. It's almost like hearing the voice of God- you can't even describe what it's like, because it is so powerful.  
  
I smiled at the stars, complimented them on their wonderful dance. I swore that they smiled back at me, and I thought to myself, I would love to see your dance up close. That was what Videl and I were going to do. We were going to look at the star's dance up close, and maybe she could hear them, too, when she saw their dance up close in the telescope. I'd like that.  
  
I heard her walk out on to the patio, a padding of feet in a straight line towards me. She stopped by my side, and I saw in the corner of my eye her head turn and look at me, then look at what I was looking at, which was the waltz in the sky.  
  
"I love the stars, don't you?" She asked me, and I nodded in a dumb fashion, still mesmerized by their wonderful glow.  
  
"They remind me of my mother," Ah, that struck something in me; they reminded me of something, as well. But I was still unsure as to what it was, yet, "and that wonderful twinkle she would get in her eyes every time I saw her."  
  
"What ever happened to your mother, Videl?" I was sheepish, scared to ask her. But she responded, almost deadpan.  
  
"She was killed in a drive by shooting." I would've comforted Videl, if she had cried, whimpered, done anything that may have shown discomfort at the thought. But she didn't, she just kept on looking up at the stars. The lights down in the front lawn started to go out, one by one, but it was at a quick pace. It was like they were returning home, because I could've sworn I saw the lights lift out of the lanterns. I frowned, and had to respond at Videl's words.  
  
"I'm sorry." I said. That was a horrible way to go- even my father died fighting for this world. And for what? Just so people could go and kill more innocents? I couldn't believe the world we lived in; I didn't want to. Maybe that's how it got started, but I wasn't sure then. I wasn't sure for such a long time.  
  
"It's alright, Gohan. I still miss her, but I'm sure I'll get over it one day." I still hadn't gotten over my father's death.  
  
"Hopefully. Do you want to go now?" There was no rush. I could stay right here all night, looking at these stars, being with Videl. The last light on the lawn went out, and Videl and I stood in darkness, the only light coming from the street lamps and the stars.  
  
"Okay, sure. I just wish I didn't have to do these stupid homework assignments." I looked at her, finally taking my gaze off of the stars.  
  
"Would you still look at the stars if you didn't have to do the homework?" I asked. She smiled, and showed a little of her white teeth.  
  
"Yeah, I would." What a wonderfully simple answer. It ended the conversation- there was no need to extend it further than that- and we jumped off of the patio and into the air, floating above her mansion so that we could see all across the blocks and roads in a one mile radius. I think Videl realized just then that the cane was no where in sight.  
  
"Gohan, where'd that cane that you got off the burglar go?" She asked me, and she looked around, as if to see it floating in the air. I seriously wouldn't have been surprised if it was. I should've caught what she said exactly at that moment, too. But I didn't, and there was no way for me to erase it now that I think about it.  
  
"It disappeared. I don't know where it went." It was the truth, after all. Who am I to lie to someone, especially Videl? That, I had thrown to the wind. I wasn't going to lie any more. After the Sayaiman blackmail Videl pulled on me, I don't think I could any more. And I think that big tournament is in about 3 months. I'm not sure, though, but I think it takes place in Japan.  
  
"Hah, maybe the old man came and got it." She joked, but that became stuck in my head for a long time- maybe he had come and gotten it. What then? How did he know that I was going to Videl's house. . . Unless he had been watching me from an angle where I could not see him, such as in the bushes somewhere. He had then, after seeing I had gone into the mansion, somehow floated over the laser wires; maybe he could do that, and then snatched it up before I came back out. But, perhaps I should revert back to my old theory of a wind picking up and knocking it to where I couldn't see it.  
  
I laughed, and said, "Yeah, maybe he did." Videl looked at me and asked me if we wanted to walk or fly.  
  
"Well, if we fly, that would just be awkward since she's just a block down the street." I explained.  
  
"Yes, you're right. But I've been hearing of burglars and murderers coming around here trying to steal stuff lately." She said, and she looked down, staring seriously at the ground. I smiled, and looked at her with a brave face, but of course I was only trying to comfort her. She had had a break in just one week before, and they took her prized possession, her Playstation 2. Yes, it would seem trivial to one to think that a Ps2 would be the prized possession of a fighter like Videl, but she really did love that machine. It took her away from this retched world, and put her in a position where she could at least let some stress out, via Grand Theft Auto 3 or some other type of mindless violence-oriented game. I liked those games.  
  
Videl smiled back at me, nervously, though, and it was sort of a "thumbs- up" thing she had done. We drifted silently down to the road, and I looked back and forth, just to make sure no one had seen us, although I don't know why. This place is deserted at night. We began to walk down the street, towards the large yellow dome glistening with light, the big bold capped words of "CAPSULE CORP" printed across it. We moved steadily closer, and we took pleasure in just being in each other's company, neither of us speaking a word. We relished this moment, though I don't particularly know why, but we did. It was a beautiful, awkward moment. It was a moment that I would soon not forget, and for some reason I always think of this time when I walk or float down this street. I breathed in heavily, and held my breath for a bit before releasing it.  
  
I looked over at Videl, and saw her face, now scared yet determined to make it across the street. Was she really this scared of burglars? And if so, could she not just knock them out with a single kick or punch? Questions buzzed in my head, and that blissful moment I once knew flew away as quick as it came to the back of my mind, and Videl started to perspire, but only a bit. I could tell it was cold sweat, just by the look in her eye.  
  
Sometimes, when I was little- about 5 or 6- when my mother took me into the city, I would get so scared of the tall people, and clutch my mother's hand for comfort, and suddenly everything just seemed to get better. I don't know why, exactly, I would, knowing by then I was very strong. But it just did. Videl closed her eyes, more of a squint, and I think she must've done that to see if her fear would flow away. Videl opened them back up, and looked at me with a fake smile, and she turned her head back around to face her directional walk. She gulped, and we were about half a block there. She was so nervous, her ki began to spike spasmodically. I though of the motherly gesture that helped me when I was little, so I grabbed her right hand in mine, and I think at first she tensed, but then she loosened. In fact, her ki dropped just a bit, and her shoulders lowered. I guess I was right, when I thought about motherly comfort. I guess it worked with friends, too. She stopped perspiring, and a few minutes later, we were almost to the mansion.  
  
"Gohan," Videl asked when we reached the cross walk, "why did you hold my hand?" I blushed a bit, and almost pulled away, but she tugged on my hand.  
  
"No, it's alright. You know I would've punched you by now if I didn't want you to do that. But why?" I stuttered, and scuffled my foot on the concrete, and severely wanted that walk sign to change. Maybe the hand gesture was for a different reason than I had first thought.  
  
"Well, when I was little, and my mom took me to the big city, I would get scared of all the big people there. So she would hold my hand, and it just made me feel better. I saw that your ki kept jumping involuntarily, so I figured you were nervous or scared about something," There, that was the truth, but I wasn't sure, at that time, how much truth of that it was.  
  
"Well, yeah, I was kind of nervous. Ever since that break-in I've been a bit insecure when I'm on the streets." She looked at the ground, and the cross walk changed from the orange stop hand to the little white man walking.  
  
"It's almost ten o' clock. Maybe we should just head back and," Videl cut me off.  
  
"No, I want to go in there and get this done, no matter what. Just because I'm a little scared of burglars doesn't mean I can't cross the street." She said in a tough tone, but she didn't let go of my hand, as I had expected she would let go.  
  
"Alright, alright. You're just lucky Bulma's a night owl," I said bemusedly. We walked across, despite the fact that the walk sign had a big orange hand that made a stop signal portraying itself to us. We reached the beginning of the walkway to Bulma's mansion, and on either side of us were white picket fences, only about three feet high. We walked along the cobblestone walkway, passing large palm trees as they hung over the walk to provide shade- although that purpose was meaningless at this time- to the walk.  
  
Eventually, we reached the door, and I let go of Videl's hand, not that I wanted to, but because Bulma would get suspicious ideas otherwise. I could tell Videl become uneasy for a second, via her ki spike- a little one- but she calmed down as I rang the door bell two times.  
  
About a second later, the door opened, and I expected to see Bulma, but I had ended up looking down to see Trunks, rubbing one of his eyes with his fist, and looking up at me. He said sarcastically, and I think he might've actually been serious, if you had thought about it.  
  
"What are you doing here? Did your mom kick you out or something?" I laughed, and Videl just stood to the side, being polite, I guess.  
  
"No, actually, she hasn't yet. We just wondered if we could use your telescope for a few hours to look up some things." Trunks shrugged, and opened the door all the way, letting us come in.  
  
"Go ahead. I'm not gonna stop you," Trunks said, and walked out of the main hall and into a room adjacent it, to the living room I guess. There was a bluish light that flickered in that room, and of course it could be nothing other than the T.v. of one of their many living rooms. I heard a low voice growl, as I and Videl started to walk up the stairs, say something as Trunks exited my view.  
  
"Boy! Who was at the door?" It was Vegeta. It could be no other.  
  
"Just Gohan and his girlfriend. They said they have to do some stuff with the telescope, but I think they're just going up there to," Trunks was, thankfully, cut off by his mother wailing out in joy.  
  
"Oh! Gohan and Videl are here?! Well, why didn't you say so?" Bulma squealed. Trunks replied, quite bewildered as his mother must've brushed by him, "But, I . . .did. . ."  
  
Bulma came up to us right when we reached the top stair, and waved at us from below. We both smiled back, waving our hands and getting slight sweat drops on our foreheads.  
  
"Gohan! Videl! How are you?" Videl shook up a bit- just a bit- at those words. I answered for her, seeing as she was troubled over something, but I didn't know what.  
  
"We're doing fine, Bulma! We just need to borrow your telescope for a little while." She smiled, and began to walk up towards us, and when she reached us, she gave me a nice, friendly hug, and with Videl the same.  
  
"Hey, go ahead. If you want me too, I'll call your mother and tell her you'll be staying over here tonight if you need to," Bulma requested, and I knew that would be splendid, but of course I had to be polite.  
  
"Well, if it's not any trouble. . . but what about Videl? She'd be all alone at her house tonight." She smiled, and waved her hand as if brushing off any trouble it might have been.  
  
"Oh, it's no trouble at all. You and Videl can sleep in your old Son Suite, okay?" She smiled, and walked past us to a table that held a cordless phone. Videl leaned up while Bulma dialed my number, and whispered, "Uh, Gohan, she wasn't being serious with the Suite thing, was she?" I replied to her.  
  
"Well, I think I know what you mean, but Bulma had separate rooms put in because my family would never get any sleep if we all slept in the same room. My father used to snore so loud it could break your ears," I explained to her. She nodded in understanding, and we walked over and around to the left side of the hall.  
  
Bulma talked into the phone.  
  
"Hey, Chi-Chi?" She said. There was a tiny noise, and Bulma talked to it.  
  
"Oh, hi Goten. Isn't it past your bed time?" She nodded.  
  
"You feeling any better? Yeah? What'd the doctor say?" She listened to him talk.  
  
"He said you'd be better in just 2 weeks? That's great! Alright, sweetie," Bulma smiled. She really liked Goten.  
  
"Can I speak to your mom for a few minutes?" She smiled into the phone.  
  
"Thanks, sweetie." She waited a few moments, and another voice picked up on the phone. It spoke out, and Bulma talked to it.  
  
"Hey Chi-Chi! Oh, nothing much. You?" Bulma laughed. "Really? Well, Gohan and his 'friend' are over here. Yes, yes, that 'friend'. They have to use my telescope, and they said it might be a while, so I'm going to let them stay here for the night. Is that alright with you? It is? Great! Now, what was that recipe I was going to give you. . ." Bulma continued to chatter on with my mother, but not before giving me a wink.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------  
  
Videl and I walked down the slowly curving hall, halogen lights giving it an overly white glow. We reached the door to the telescope room- I could tell, it was marked "Planetarium" on the front- and I pushed the door open. We entered into the room, and the air hung, staying stagnant and making the room feel empty and large. I clapped my hands, and the lights flickered on, but they weren't your normal lights.  
  
Videl gasped at what she saw, and from time to time I, too, gasped just a bit at its magnificence. We stood on a long narrow bridge that at its end was the largest telescope you've ever seen. The entire room was just one big ball that had endless amounts of twinkling stars illuminating the room. You felt like you were in a huge sphere.  
  
"It's amazing! We'll definitely ace this thing for sure!" Videl said, smiling triumphantly. I wondered, just at that moment, just what we were supposed to be doing- I don't quite remember.  
  
"Now, am I correct in thinking we have to find what we think is a galaxy and name it? And then we have to estimate how far away it is in light years, for a test grade?" I asked, looking down to the telescope. Videl nodded her head. Jesus, what a simple test grade that would be.  
  
"Yeah," She said, as she walked towards the telescope, "we each have to find what looks like a galaxy to us, place it on a star chart, and name it, then estimate its distance." I nodded, and remembered what Mr. Belcan said.  
  
"Okay. You want to go first?" I followed her, and she gave me an enthusiastic "yes". I thought that was okay, but I might have to tell her how to use it. It's very simple, but also very complex, and a lot of the time, I almost screw up on it. I won't go into too much detail about how I told Videl how to use the machine. It isn't very important.  
  
"Okay, now by pressing this button, the computer will lock onto carbon gases in large clumps outside the atmosphere, and this button here will," Videl cut me off, and since I had been getting cut off so much lately, I would've gotten mad, but for some reason I just couldn't get mad at Videl.  
  
"Gohan, I'm just looking for a galaxy, not the whole damn theory of the universe, okay?" She said, and I guess she was annoyed because I had gone on like that for a while. I smiled, and thought of a quick come back.  
  
"Well, maybe if we found the secrets of the universe we might get extra credit." She promptly smacked me in the back of the head. Videl sat down in the chair that was right under the telescope, and I pulled up a rolling chair that was sitting in a corner on the platform. She gazed into the telescope, and used the remote control to her right to zoom in and out. I looked at the things she viewed on a monitor that floated in front of me. She zoomed in and out of the moon, and played around for a little bit, looking into one of the craters of the moon. I might want to tell you this now, so as to not confuse you; the thing she's using is actually just the transmitter and monitor. The actual telescope is out in space, and can maneuver around at the quantum level. At least that's what Bulma said, she said that the telescope is able to jump around at about 1,000 light years a nanosecond if it has to, even faster than that. So you could get really great views of some planets and galaxies.  
  
Over the course of the next couple of hours (about two) we had completed our assignments. And little did I know. Little did I know, that by talking with the man in the white suit, and looking through that telescope, my whole world would change...  
A/N: Okay, the next chapter is out- I'm sorry it wasn't exactly that long, but trust me, it WILL get a lot more interesting as the events unfold. I just felt that I'd like to leave you with just a bit of a hang.  
  
By the way, please, PLEASE give reviews that have thoughtful, well typed messages on them. I don't really like getting these inane reviews that only say "yeh yeh i lke!!!!1!!1" GOD they're annoying, not just to me, but probably to all the other authors out there that get these.  
  
In short, thoughtful comments, please!  
  
Be sure to check out PsYcHo's story of "Tomber Amourex". It's a great read. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
That night, after we had finished cataloging our galaxies (Videl found a nice spiral galaxy, and named it Pepper due to its grayish color,) we went to the Son Suite. It was quite large. The opening room-a living room- had a fifteen foot ceiling, dome shaped, with a mural that was very similar to a famous mural in a catholic church, although the name of it has slipped my mind. There were child angels floating around big, beautiful fluffy white clouds, amidst a blue sky. A chandelier hung from the middle. To my right was a space with big comfy couches situated around a 60 inch television. Down the middle was a hall of sorts, although it did not have any walls. A red carpet was laid out over marble, and went all the way up three steps, where there was a mahogany dining table set with 8 chairs, three on each side and one on each end. A large bay window was behind the table. To your left, there was a large kitchen, set with about three stoves, and had an island in the middle. There were 3 refrigerators in each corner of the triangle shaped kitchen. And on the far right and left corners were hallways that led to the separate rooms.  
  
"Jesus, Gohan! This is more like a palace than a suite!" Videl exclaimed, and I couldn't blame her- but Chi-Chi and Bulma came up with the design, so I couldn't be held responsible. We walked out into the middle, and I let her gaze up at the mural on the ceiling. She gasped and looked in awe of the mural. I smiled, but I didn't look at the mural. I just watched her look at it with a smile on hers and mine's face. She, but I had not noticed it before now, I don't know why, was strikingly beautiful. I think maybe, it was the way her hair glistened off of the chandelier's lights, her big blue eyes... Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. We are just friends, good friends. But oh, how little I knew how much of that we would become.  
  
I knew very little about my life in those first couple of days, but everything started coming together that night when I and Videl fell asleep on the couch watching the movie "Edward Scissorhands". We had both seen it several times, and she had fallen asleep first, probably because she was just tired. I fell asleep second. In fact, I think that Videl had fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder, and I dozed off from there.  
  
In a sense, although I don't know why, it may have caused the dream I had, since the entire movie had a lot of snow and snow-themed music in it. It was definitely a dark story; but we liked it, because he had a considerably better life, I think, than I and Videl had for this time period.  
  
God I hated the dream I had that night. Hell, it was a nightmare, but if I could see into the future, it would have told me so much more, or less. It depends on how you looked at it, really. But what the scary thing about it is was that it felt so real.  
  
Well, this is how it went. Everything felt stagnant, static. Like I was inside a fuzzy television, and the entire time throughout my body was invoked with a strained fear, twisted and contorted like wire. My eyes opened slowly, and I looked around, everything fading in and out of a black smoke. Videl was not sleeping by my side,(she wasn't even in the room I think,) and the television screen was fuzzy, but for an odd reason I could still hear the noise of a randomized show. It was an incomprehensible audio. I got up unconsciously, and floated across the floor, and everything was tinted dark grey, except in the middle where the dome shaped mural was. The kitchen was filled with smoke, and a tombstone sat at the opening of the kitchen. I heard a voice say in my head, and it was almost a combination of mine and Vegeta's. 'Here lies yon child of lost warrior.' I don't know, but that kept on repeating, over and over, and got progressively louder as I got closer to the dome. The dining table had dishes and food set on it, but they were all stoic, total devoid of taste or color. The picture of the dining table fizzled, like a bad video tape.  
  
My feet planted on the ground in the middle, right below the chandelier. There was no chandelier. I looked up, and the mural of Heaven still radiated with color and beauty, and was just as bright and happy as ever. Fear started to develop more inside of my heart. Oddly enough, without the chandelier, it was like the mural illuminated itself. More odd, though, was that it began to snow, just from the mural. Like the snow was drifting out from the clouds.  
  
The snow formed a pile around me, and as I continued to look up, that familiar white static bar when the tracking messes up on video tapes streamed itself along the mural, and as it slowly did, the mural became black and white, and it lost its lighting source when the bar had disappeared.  
  
A small drop of liquid fell out of one of the angels eyes and spattered on my face. I wiped it off, and looked at it, smeared on my hand. It was blood, and the blood turned into a gassy smoke. It streamed out of my hand, and floated around me in a circle. It was almost as if I knew what was going to happen, almost like a precognition, but I was still surprised to see the man in the white suit standing outside of the mural dome, near the grave. He gave a wicked smile, a wicked, evil grandfather smile to me.  
  
"Sir," He started, and the blood circle disappeared as if it weren't there, "How are you, you are how?" Oh, that bothered me, even when I think about it now.  
  
"How do you mean, mean do you how?" Now I was speaking like him, but it was not of my own free will.  
  
"You are not fine, fine are you not?" He appeared right in front of me, but at the same time he was still over by the grave in the kitchen. The two spoke in unison, their voices echoing in the dome.  
  
"Call me Larry." Alright, I could deal with this. He smiled at me, and tipped his hat so his eyes were further blocked.  
  
"What's that tombstone of, Larry?" I asked him, and a deer with red flaring eyes jumped across the snow, but not before pausing in the middle and looking at me. The deer came up behind Larry and rubbed its head against his arm. Larry patted its head gently.  
  
"It's the tombstone of the son of a lost warrior. Did you not read what it had said?" He inquired.  
  
"Well, yes. But who's the son?" He smiled and disappeared, like someone had clicked their fingers and he was gone. The deer was gone as well. I walked through the snow, and kept walking through it. I had left the dome, which now was way back there, and I was in a white place, snow on the ground, the horizon filled with white, the sky white, everything white. I looked at my shirt. My pants, shirt, everything on me except my skin was black.  
  
A screen opened itself up to me, and I looked at it with a gaze of confusion and concentration. The screen flickered, and came to life. It showed Hercule, with the number "3:16" carved into his head as he waved and gave his victory sign. I scowled at him, and blood shot out from where I stood, twisting and contorting around in a thin line. The line was jagged, but found its way to the bottom of the image. The blood line lifted up like a rope being pulled off of the ground. It touched the image, and the entire screen went black.  
  
A spear like form grew from the black screen, it too, black. It reached out, and shot past me, its width three feet in diameter. It went on forever, and hit what I guess is a wall. The deer with the blazing red eyes walked up to me, rubbed its head against my arm, and collapsed. It fell into a white void, and I swear I think I heard it say something that was strikingly similar to Videl's voice. I think it was 'Why did you let this happen?' I'm not sure.  
  
The black spear turned itself around and went around me, brushing by me, and it felt like liquid. It followed after the deer, and wrapped itself around the animal. The black sphere swallowed up the deer, and convulsed back to me, and looked at me. I did not see my reflection, but a frowning picture of Hercule. The picture stared at me for a few moments, before recoiling back, and standing 30 feet high. It opened up its tip like a blooming flower, and spat out the deer. I walked up to the deer, its red flaring eyes now a dull blue. There were gashed holes across its thigh and stomach, and one on her back.  
  
The spear wiggled and contorted. I was appalled by it, and it chuckled at me. Its wiggling became more energized, and violent. Two more spears grew out from its sides, and formed clawed arms that wiggled with the body. A mouth formed at the tip, razor sharp teeth bared, and horns popped up on its head. Two slits on either side of the "head" opened and revealed deadly blue eyes with no iris. There were stars that formed inside the creature. They twinkled at me, and I smiled warmly at them.  
  
The creature spoke to me in a rasp tone. It licked its teeth, rotated its neck around, and breathed heavily. It hissed at me.  
  
"Calceranium fulintan, necromancer telegrancer, shelegai," I had no clue what it meant.  
  
"The sins of the father pass down to the son." It translated it, I guess. The creature broke into separate spheres, each about one foot wide, all of them with the face of Hercule or Larry on them. In the middle of each of the spheres were a galaxy, and what beautiful galaxies they were.  
  
The spheres attached themselves to the deer, infesting the open wounds. I could no longer see the spheres. They had hauled themselves into the gashes, and closed them up. The deer's eyes flared red again. It got up, new life breathed into its bones. It glowered at me, and bared hideous dagger-like teeth. I took a step back, and fell into a black hole.  
  
I flicked open my eyes quickly, cold sweat on my forehead. I looked around. The T.V. was turned off, and there was a golden light coming from the windows around me to light the huge room. Everything looked normal. There was no grave in front of the kitchen, there weren't white tracking bars gliding across the room, and the dining table was completely bare. I got up, consciously this time, and walked over, and looked up at the mural. Completely normal. I walked into the kitchen, and opened up one of the refrigerators, my favorite one that Goten and I often raided. I grabbed the gallon of milk out, and set it on the island. I reached over to one of the cabinets and grabbed a plastic cup. I set it down on the island. I twisted the cap off of the milk, and poured me a glass. I screwed the cap back on, and put the milk back up.  
  
I sipped my milk, and savored its creamy good cold taste. I finished the glass slowly, just standing against the island, thoughtless. Once I had finished it, I put the cup in the sink.  
  
I walked across to the dining table and around it to the curtains of the bay window. They were tinted gold by the dawn sun. I grabbed them and spread them apart to greet the new day. I was shocked to see it still dark. I was more shocked to see no moon. I was blown away to see that in place of the moon, there was the spear creature, cackling and slowly spreading across the earth, which I could now see in its full view, and the black liquid spread out like caramel over an apple, and eventually devoured the planet. It cackled, and did a victory sign with its clawed hand...until the head of the spear beast exploded, and its chest ripped open with light streaming out. It roared despite there being no head. I had an inkling to break open the window and finish the job.  
  
So, I did. I broke through the window, flying through space that amazingly had air and wind currents. I built up the energy in my right arm, until a ball of ki formed at my outstretched fist. Rings of light pulsated up my arm and into the ball to intensify it. I slowly aimed at the screaming beast, and I burst out my power to where my hair was glowing silvery white, and my eyes a glaring turquoise. Blue ki rings pulsated up my arm, bigger than the white ones.  
  
The ki ball was now as big as me, and I could see through it. I aimed it at the hole that was forming in the beast's chest. An intense ringing emanated around me, my hand burned from the energy I was displacing. I grunted in pain, and when I released the ball of light, everything went black.  
  
I awoke from the nightmare in a daze, lying on the couch. I did not spring up, or do anything physical. All I did was open my eyes in haste. I would have blushed quicker if I had any idea what was going on, but it took me a while of recollecting and gaining my breath to realize that there was something pressing on my back, and a lengthy appendage over my side, dangling.  
  
I almost thought it was Cell, God I don't know why; it must've reminded me of that sick little tail he used to suck people through. No, it was just Videl. That's about the time that my blush ran all across my face, and embarrassment thrummed in my heart. I don't know why I would be embarrassed. She seemed to be sound asleep, and thank goodness that the couch was very big. I could've rolled over her if it had been any smaller. I didn't dare move, because it might cause her to wake; I didn't want to move, because I kind of liked laying here like this.  
  
It reminded me when Goten would get scared of something... I don't know what, but he would come into my room, and crawl into my bed, and the next morning (before we cut his tail) he would have his tail smacking against my face, and cause me to sneeze. He would jump out of bed, obviously startled, and land right on my chest, knocking the wind out of me. It was hilarious every time.  
  
I felt Videl shift a bit, and murmur quietly. She slid her arm off of my stomach, and for the briefest moment I thought I could be free and be able to get up. But I didn't. She stretched, and nuzzled up against me, which sent a bit of a tingle down my spine. I was now sweating cold. This had to be worse than the nightmare. Not only was I just now realizing that I may like Videl more than just a good friend, I was also realizing that she was pressing up against me to the point where if she moved any more I would fall off the couch and disrupt her sleep.  
  
Damn, I hate it when this happens. My heart was going to pop right out of my chest. I knew it. Oh, crap, I thought, as Videl twitched a bit. I sighed silently in relief that she had not made any major moves. If only she would have rolled in the opposite direction; I wouldn't have fallen off of the couch.  
  
Murphy's Law can really come and bite you in the ass at the most inappropriate times. Videl rolled into my back, and sent me sprawling down and landing on the floor face first. She tumbled off as well, and crashed onto my back. I was sore there for at least an hour.  
  
She mumbled, and I think she had said "Ow, what the hell just happened?" Well, I couldn't just sit there, with my face in the carpet, and Videl lying across my back, one of her arms forcing my head into the carpet more, and the other tied in a knot around my leg. Her legs were extended in the air, the upper parts resting on the couch.  
  
"Ugh, what the hell just happened?" That's what I would have liked to know. I gave her the best guess I could.  
  
"Well, first, you could try and get your arm from suffocating me," I said politely, and she tried her best to move it off of my head. Videl got it off enough for me to lift my head.  
  
"I think we fell off of the couch while we were sleeping." I made a move to get up, and Videl rolled off of my back, and landed on the carpet. I scrambled up and got leverage on the couch, and then stood up sleepily. I was getting little clips of the dream in my head. I wiggled around, to loosen myself up. I then helped Videl up from the floor.  
  
"Sorry about that, I guess we just dozed off..." I apologized. Why, I don't know. Maybe I was just being polite. She smiled and waved her hand like Bulma.  
  
"Don't worry about it. My little brother and I used to doze off watching T.V. all the time." I looked at her, perplexed. She had a little brother? I didn't know about that. She gave me a grim smile.  
  
"I didn't know you had a little brother." I said. She sighed, and started walking towards the kitchen, slowly, and the little image of the tombstone clipped in my head.  
  
"Yeah, I did." Her voice echoed through the hall, and it sounded exasperated. I walked after her.  
  
"He was such a good kid. He trained a lot harder than I did, too. He was so cute and funny, and liked to goof around...He was a mirror image of Goten's personality. You'd have liked him, Gohan." She sounded so grim and vague.  
  
"I'm sure I would have, Videl. Do you want anything to eat?" I looked at her, (we had reached the kitchen) and she smiled at me, nodding. I went about setting something for us to eat. It was scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon. We talked as we prepared the meal.  
  
"What kinds of things did your brother do?" I asked her. She smiled, and chuckled. A glimpse of the deer flashed over my memory.  
  
"He used to pull pranks on my father a lot. Like this one time, my father had been getting ready for a meeting with some important people, so he was rushing around the house trying to get ready. My brother took a bucket and filled it with water and flour, and put it over the door outside. He set it up so whoever walked in or out would be drenched and floured." I chuckled. Quite the conspirator.  
  
"He originally wanted it to fall on dad's head when he would be rushing out the door, but he didn't know that the important people would be coming to OUR house for the meeting." I cringed, and I knew exactly what would be coming as I flipped a pancake on the griddle.  
  
"Well, the door bell rang, and the C.E.O.'s didn't even notice the bucket was there. When my father opened the door to greet them, it went all over the place, getting on my father and the C.E.O.'s." She laughed, and I laughed with her.  
  
"What happened then?" I asked. She put some bacon on a plate. Videl continued.  
  
"My father got so mad that he sent my brother to boot camp for two months. When he got back, he was so much different than before. He was disciplined, always saying 'yessir' and 'no ma'am'. He was a perfect gentleman." I nodded. I wish Goten could act a bit more mature.  
  
"How old was your brother then?" I asked her.  
  
"He was 6 years old." That sent shock through my heart. A six year old boy, who was just trying to have some fun, getting sent to boot camp? How sick, twisted...  
  
"Oh my God, your father sent a six year old kid to boot camp? Which one?" I stressed. She sighed in a deathly voice, and that made me get goose bumps.  
  
"That one where the drill sergeant pushed this kid so far that he shot himself." I squirmed, but Videl seemed so unfazed.  
  
"I'm sorry. It must've been hard on you and your mother." I consoled her.  
  
"It was really hard on my mother. She begged my father not to send him there, but he insisted. It broke my mother to pieces." All I could do was say, "I'm sorry." What else could I possibly do for her?  
  
"Well, when I was around eleven," She looked at me weird, "My father was killed. His anniversary is about two weeks from now." I told her. She squinted both of her eyes as she tossed scrambled eggs onto a separate plate.  
  
"Isn't that when the anniversary of Cell's death comes about?" She asked. Well, of course she knew that, but I guess she was just checking to make sure that I knew that too.  
  
"Yeah, he died the same day as Cell." I frowned, and the picture of the tombstone flashed in my mind, along with the vision of Earth being covered by the spear beast. I was never the same.  
  
-------------  
  
A/N: I'm sorry about the delay of Chapter 2, but I had gone to Disney World for a week, and I had just never gotten around to doing that much of it for a couple of weeks. But here you go, another chapter out.  
  
"Your writing prowess blows me away. Not very often you get detail and pacing as good as this. And why aren't you getting anymore reviews!??!" Well, if you're that interested, you can start reading my firsts, going from Galaxy, to War of Arcadia, Silent, They came frome WHERE?! and then this one. You can see how I've evolved as far as writing talent goes over just a couple of months.  
  
Yeah, I do get kinda pissed off when no one reviews my stories. I like it so much better when they actually say something credible (Unlike Gin) or great constructive criticism. I also like it when people ask questions or make predictions. It gives me ideas and adds certain elements to the story that weren't there before.  
  
Until next time... 


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four  
  
"I'm sorry, Gohan. I know it must've been hard on your family." Well, I used to get regular "calls" from my father in Heaven, but he had stopped talking after a while. It really saddened my mother and that he could only talk to people he knew. So, he couldn't talk with Goten, until he met him in the physical sense. I got a bit depressed for a time, and...Although I regret it so much...I had gotten the assumption stuck in my head that my father just didn't love me, or had forgotten about me. I thought about it so much, and dwelled so much on it, that it sent me to almost drown myself...Until my little brother told me that he still loved me, even if father didn't. I then knew that it was silly to assume that my father didn't love me. He was probably just too busy training or keeping Frieza and Cell from uprising-again-to call.  
  
"Yeah, it was. She had a really hard time accepting that my father didn't want to come back." Oh, shit.  
  
"What did you say?" She looked up from her pancakes, a quizzical gaze set on my eyes. And, damn it all, I just had to say that I wouldn't lie any more. That was a stupid move, Gohan. Damn it! I had to think of something quick, something that wasn't a lie, but wasn't telling her it, either.  
  
"Oh, it's nothing. I'll just tell you later." Okay, that was good enough. She glared at me. I cursed again.  
  
"Why can't you just tell me now?" She asked. Well, I knew what the real reason I thought it was. I put my fork and knife down.  
  
"Well, you might think I'm just plain crazy." What? It was the truth. She really might think I'm just crazy if I told her about the Dragon balls and Dad.  
  
"Try me, Gohan. I would only think you're crazy if you told me you thought you were being stalked by deranged howler monkeys from a different planet." Wow. That was almost partially true. I was kidnapped by Radditz, and he DID look like a monkey.  
  
"Okay, but promise you won't freak out." She promised she wouldn't.  
  
"Alright. Have you ever heard of the legend of the Dragon balls?" She nodded her head.  
  
"Yeah, my mom used to tell me that the Dragon balls were protected by a little boy that she once knew." Oh, woah. That was weird. Did Dad know someone that he had met when he was little that could've been Videl's mom?  
  
"I never actually believed her. She kept saying that he rode around on a cloud, helping people and things like that. Silly, isn't it?" She smiled, and laughed just a bit. I groaned in my head. Now what?  
  
"Well, Videl, to tell you the truth...those Dragon balls that grant wishes are real." She had taken a drink from her milk right when I said that. It was stuck in her throat, and she almost spewed it out all over the table. But she gulped it down, and then wailed.  
  
"What?!?! They're real?! Gohan, you aren't telling me stories, are you?" I was kind of disappointed. She said she wouldn't freak out.  
  
"No, I'm not. And that little boy your mom was talking about- that must've been my Dad. He used to go around and keep the Dragon balls out of harm's way." Her mouth was agape. Oh, damn, I've done it. I think I might've broken a nerve in her brain.  
  
"Oh my God, Gohan," She murmured. I smiled at her.  
  
"Are...are you serious?" She was stuttering. Oh, crap. I believe that all that stuff her father had told her was starting to crumble away, or maybe it was making its last stand. I didn't know what was going on in her mind.  
  
"Yes. You sure you want me to continue? It's not that big of a deal," I said, but she just shook her head slowly.  
  
"No, it's just that...my father told me that those things didn't exist, and that my mother was making it all up...But if she had made it up herself, no one else would have known...Oh my God..." She murmured again.  
  
"Videl, maybe your father just didn't know that the dragon balls existed, and that he thought your mom was making it up?" I said just to comfort her over all shock that her father had lied to her.  
  
"Yes, maybe...Oh, man, first flying and super strength and ki, and now mystical balls that grant wishes? It's almost too much, Gohan." She rubbed her forehead gingerly. The sun from the window played brilliantly on her features.  
  
"Hey, it's alright. I was a little confused when I found it out, too." I told her. I knew from when I was born that my mother and father were very strong, but I never even knew about the Dragon balls until my father died for his first time. Heh, now that I think about it, I didn't even know I was an alien until Vegeta and Nappa came along. I mean, I had had my little thoughts of 'why does my uncle keep calling my dad a Sayain' and things of that nature.  
  
"Well, it's just a little surprising that you think you live in such a real world, then you find out all these variables that tie in to make it so unreal...Have you ever felt that way, Gohan?" Oh, God, many times. Such as the dream, or when I'm fighting against a huge enemy, such as Cell-the bastard- or Frieza, and especially when I had a bit of a period of depression.  
  
"Yeah, especially in dreams. I even had a really weird one last night. I can remember all of it as if it had happened in real life," I told her.  
  
"What was the dream about?" She got that quizzical stare on her face again. But at least it wasn't the scrutinizing kind where she tried to delve into my mind with her eyes.  
  
"Well, I don't really know, actually. But I can tell you that that man in the white suit was in the dream." She raised an eyebrow.  
  
"He was?" Videl said.  
  
"Yeah, he told me to call him 'Larry'. It was so freaky- and it happened in this room, only everything was all grey and static. Kind of made you feel like you were in an old television set. Anyways, it snowed inside the dome area right before Larry showed up. Then, a deer with bright red eyes came and nuzzled with Larry." Videl was attentive, and looked on in fascination as I recalled the more...'peaceful' aspects of the dream.  
  
"Then I was just in another room, like I had been transported there or something. It was all white," The rest would scare Videl. I knew it would. If I told her that an image of her father with the symbol 3:16 on it appeared and a black spear came out of her father's head, she might get kind of worried.  
  
"So, I saw the white deer again, and a big spear like beast came out and ate it, then spit it back out. It was freaky. So I tried to stop the beast, and right before I could kill it, I woke up." Oh, how I longed to tell her the whole story, but I couldn't. It would scare her too much.  
  
"Gee, that sounds like a freaky dream. I had something similar a few nights ago," Videl said, resuming her eating. I became oddly aware of the elements around me as she spoke, but was still directly attentive to Videl.  
  
"I had this dream where I was walking through a big pile of snow, and a black deer walked up and nuzzled on me. It had big pretty black eyes. It stayed with me for a while, but when it went off I had a bad case of fear. I was walking along when a large grizzly bear busted out from the snow, and growled at me. It had these weird marks on its head, but I couldn't remember what they were. It was like, 314 or something. It chased me through the snow until it grabbed me...then I woke up." A little tingle of nervousness rand down my spine. That sounded a lot like my dream...just a lot less creepy.  
  
"Yeah, the deer and the snow definitely sound similar. But the grizzly bear is a bit off touch." I said. She nodded, and finished up her meal. I had finished almost ten minutes ago. Videl looked out the window, and smiled out at the blue sky.  
  
"We have the weirdest fucking dreams."  
  
-----------------  
  
Videl and I were flying towards my house for some training exercises. The wind gusted through our hair, and my green long sleeve shirt fluttered on my body. It was very cold, and I wish that I hadn't left my coat at Videl's, but oh well. Videl looked to be just shivering, her wearing only the shirt she had on last night and the blue jeans. We were still twenty miles away from my house, so it was still about a 3 minute fly. I was pretty sure she could make it, but I did feel obligated to do something about it.  
  
"You okay, Videl? You look as pale as a ghost out here," I said, and she did. Her entire face was pale, and her cheeks were burned red from the cold. But Videl stayed resolute, and she was sure she was alright.  
  
"I'm fine, just a little cold. We're almost there, right?" I turned on my back to face the sky. It was billowing with grey clouds, with bits of sun shining through warily. I looked down.  
  
"Only a few more minutes," She nodded, and closed her eyes. Videl didn't like this, I could just tell. We probably shouldn't fly in this cold anymore. In fact, it was a lot chillier than it was last year. In fact, last year was kind of warm and toasty. But this cold might bring on some nasty ice storms.  
  
We reached my home at about a quarter till' three, as we had stayed with Bulma and helper her out with some things before we left. Videl and I landed on the cold dead grass. It was very quiet out here today, much quieter than usual. In fact, the only thing I could really hear was the sound of the wind blowing. The cold stung my cheeks.  
  
"Sure is quiet out here. Do you think your mom went out for groceries?" Videl asked, looking around slowly. Well, my mother might have. And if that was the case, she'd be gone for hours. And it might even be half a day, if Goten had felt good enough to go with her.  
  
"She might have. Hey, let's get inside before we freeze to death. I'll make some hot cocoa," Hot cocoa sounded good. We made our way to the front door of my home, and I twisted the lock. It was unlocked. I opened the door, and a gush of warm air greeted us. The lights in the house were off, and for a brief lisp in time I was scared that I was having a rehash moment of my dream, because everything had a grayish tent to it. I quickly dismissed the idea, and moved my hand over the wall, flipping the lights on in the small hall way.  
  
Videl closed the door behind her, and we walked briskly in, noting that there were no sounds coming from the kitchen or the upstairs. We walked into the small "main hall" room, which had hardwood flooring and a green rug- and to my left, the kitchen and its table, with absolutely nothing in the kitchen that would lead one to believe that it had ever been touched. To my right, were three small steps that led down into the living room area, where there was the television set to the wall where you couldn't see it, and an L-shaped sofa and two recliners opposite that.  
  
"Videl, there are some blankets on the sofa. Go warm yourself up if you want to, and I'll go and fix up the hot cocoa." She stared at me with a pleading look.  
  
"Please, I'll make it. It would only be fair since you've helped me so much." I shook my head; I was getting worried that she might get sick. I knew I wouldn't, I was fine...but she was a different story.  
  
"Please, I don't want you to catch cold. I'll only be done in a minute." She sighed, and smiled at me.  
  
"That's why I like you, Son Gohan. You never think about yourself." I blushed considerably. She laughed at my red complexion, and set off for the sofa. I trotted off into the kitchen, and began to prepare the cocoa.  
  
But, was that the only reason she liked me? I blushed just a bit. I wasn't sure. No, she had to like me for more than that...I knew I liked her...a lot. And, it's also kind of embarrassing, but I think I might be falling for her. I know that that sounds silly, but I really think I am. I've never cared for and liked to be around someone so much like I do Videl. In fact, I really was never able to hold a good conversation with anyone but Videl, and every time I see her I blush just a bit. I even get goose bumps up and down my spine when she's around me.  
  
I think I was falling in love with her.  
  
I poured the cocoa mix into the milk, and stirred it a bit. I took the bag of marshmallows and poured in a bunch, some in each mug. (Both Videl and I liked a lot of marshmallows in our cocoa.) I then took the mugs and placed them in the microwave, and set it to five minutes, on low power. The key to making hot cocoa is not to nuke it, but to lull it into warmth. I pressed the start button, and the metallic whir of the microwave set into motion.  
  
I walked out of the kitchen and down the stairs into the living room, where Videl was wrapped in a red blanket, on the corner of the couch. She was watching Cowboy Bebop. (I have the entire series. She must've popped one of my DvD's in.)  
  
"The cocoa will be ready in about five minutes," I said, "Do you need anything else?" Well, I had to be kind and be gentlemanly about guests at my house. But Videl, like most other people, always refused.  
  
"No, it's alright. I just need to get warm. But Gohan," She added with sudden surprise, "Can...can the Dragon balls bring people back to life?" She asked me, and Videl was so concealed about it.  
  
"Only if they've died within a year," I said. Videl sunk in her spot.  
  
"Damn. Why can't they bring back people that may have died a long time ago?" She whined, and I thought that was kind of cute and sad at the same time.  
  
"Well, it's just how they were made. I can't change the way the Dragon balls are made; but I know someone who can. But of course, he's not exactly up to updating the Dragon balls every single time we ask him to," I told her. She nodded her head. The buzzer on the microwave beeped out over the television. I walked out of the living room, but not before hearing Videl sniff.  
  
I came back with the cocoa, and handed her a mug, which she gladly took. Videl sipped it tenderly, and smiled at the rich taste. Hey, like I said- you have to lull it. I sat down on the sofa, on the left of Videl. I grabbed a blue blanket from the back of the sofa and pulled it over me.  
  
We watched Cowboy Bebop for about two hours; it was mine and Videl's favorite show, aside from maybe South Park. It was almost five o' clock by the time it was all done, and my mother had still not gotten home.  
  
"I'm getting kind of worried about my mother and Goten," I said. What if Goten had gone into another seizure and it caused mother to have to take him to the hospital, or something? Or maybe Goten had wandered off and someone had taken my mother hostage? All of this 'what ifs' were driving me nuts.  
  
"Don't worry, Gohan. I'm sure they'll be back in about an hour. Chi- Chi's probably just shopping. You didn't happen to check to see if she left a note did you?" Oh, damn, how could I have forgotten to check the fridge for notes?  
  
"You're right, Videl!" I leaped up, and almost tripped over the blanket, and walked quickly into the kitchen and looked at the fridge. I looked up and down, and then I saw a yellow piece of notebook paper, with the following letter scrawled out with my mother's handwriting.  
  
"Gohan, Goten and I have gone to the mall and other places to shop and get groceries. We'll be back by about 7 or 8. If Videl's with you, absolutely NO entering your room together until I get back.  
  
Love you, Mom."  
  
My mom really did like to think Videl and I were in that kind of relationship. Or maybe she just liked to tease us. Whatever it was, if it was annoying in voice, it was even more so in words. I gained a smug little look on my face, and walked back into the living room. Videl saw my smug expression, and smiled in triumph.  
  
"There was a note, wasn't there?" She said bemusedly. I grumbled yes, and sat down on the sofa.  
  
"She won't allow me to go in my room with you. She STILL thinks that," I told her. Videl rolled her eyes and sighed.  
  
"What is up with your mom? I mean, no offense, but she is extremely grandchild- happy. But then, she doesn't even want us to go into your room! Oh, man," Videl groaned. I whole heartedly agree with her; there was something wacky about my mother.  
  
"I don't know. I guess she's just anxious for me to continue the "royal bloodline", or something." Videl looked at me weird...again.  
  
"Royal bloodline? What, was your mom a princess or something?" Videl laughed.  
  
"Well, actually, yeah," Videl got a morbid expression on her face, "My mom was the princess of Ox King. That's my grandpa. When my mom married my dad, she never told him that as soon as she was to marry, that she would become queen and he would become king of "Ox"." Videl looked at me with a stupor I only saw when my enemy is in awe of my power.  
  
"Gohan, you're a prince? When did your mom tell you this?!" Videl asked.  
  
"Well, to tell you the truth, she told me only about two months ago. I had before that only assumed that my Grandfather's name, Ox King, was just a silly nick name for him because he was as big as an ox." I explained, and all Videl could do was just stare at me in disbelief and wonder. It kind of embarrassed me, but then it kind of made me feel proud.  
  
"Man, Gohan...I guess I thought I knew you, but then again..." She looked away from me. That hurt me, but that was okay. I think I've been telling her too much lately.  
  
"Don't worry about it, Videl. I'm still who I am. I was already a prince, and it didn't change anything about me. I'm not going to act all high and mighty over it. We even live in a small house out in the boondocks of the world." Videl looked at me, and I blushed. She was giving me this sad smile, and it was so beautiful.  
  
"Gohan, I know that. I just didn't know that you were royalty. Is that why your mom doesn't have a job, because her townspeople support her?" Videl asked me. I swear I blushed even more. I almost had to hide it.  
  
"I think so. But even then...I think the kingdom died a long time ago. I guess I was just stating that my mom was a princess." Videl laughed. Why would she laugh?  
  
"Well, Mr.Prince, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go to the bathroom." I laughed, and she sprung up, and walked up the little stair case and to the left. All the bathrooms were upstairs. I relaxed in my seat.  
  
I really think I was falling in love with her. I tried to keep a good demeanor, and not show it. But I think it started to slip. I was afraid that she wouldn't love me back, see? That I openly state it, and she would think I'm just nuts. God, I couldn't let that happen. But then, what if it was the same for her? What then? Would we both have the same affections and never show it to each other? Oh, God, I hope not.  
  
I looked up from the television, as I heard a sound of a door opening. I looked and saw my mother, carrying two brown paper bags of groceries into the kitchen. I got up, and walked over to the top of the stairs. Goten was carrying four.  
  
"Hey there, little guy," I called out to him. He smiled at me.  
  
"Hey big brother! We got back a little early," Goten liked stating the obvious. He sneezed, and almost dropped one of the bags. I grabbed it before it hit the floor.  
  
"Goten, why don't you go set these bags down and go get some rest. You know you're still pretty sick. I'll take care of the rest." He nodded vigorously, and set about his business.  
  
I walked outside into the brisk cold air. I walked over to the green sedan, and went over to the trunk. I grabbed some groceries-about six bags out of about 20- and carried them into the house and into the kitchen.  
  
I went back outside, and I saw Videl grabbing some groceries. It started to, and I wasn't surprised, snow. After about two more minutes, we had finished the chore, closed the trunk and gotten back inside, little drops of snow on our shoulders.  
  
"Oh, Gohan and Videl, thank you for bringing in the groceries. I'll start preparing dinner, okay?" My mother said, well, demanded, I guess.  
  
"Okay, mom. We'll just be in the living room if you need anything," I said, and Videl and I walked back into the living room. Goten was covered in a green blanket and watching Spongebob.  
  
"Hey Goten. Which episode is that?" I asked.  
  
A/N: Ahoy! Well, Ann, guess what: You never know. I like how you made that prediction!  
  
Sorry I had to end this so shortly, but really, this chapter would probably be going nowhere for a while.  
  
Remember, thoughtful comments and suggestions. NO stupid remarks. (That means you, Tyler.)  
  
Until next time... 


	5. Chapter Five

Dear friends of FF.net: a string of events-annoying events- have occurred recently that have held me back from writing the further chapters of The Man in the White Suit. Let me just list them out for you, and then we can get to the story, alright?  
  
I've been bogged down with ungodly amounts of homework. I developed a bit of writer's block. I started playing the following: Zone of the Enders 2, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and I did play a little Bounty Hunter, but that game sucked monkey balls. I've had to go to a lot of stupid parties and celebrations lately, which definitely haven't helped me to get in the mood for this story. My computer crashed, and destroyed my 700 music files, all of my music videos, and basically all the programs (I had to restart the OS.) Good thing, though: It got rid of the viruses on the computer, and it also got rid of all that muck and junk that seemed to be bogging my hard drive down.  
  
So I basically haven't found the time-although I did print out Chapter Five right before the computer crashed, so I guess I'm good. Did I mention that my sister had an accident and totaled her car? GAH!  
  
Okay, now on with the chapter! And may annoyances be few and far between.  
  
Chapter Five  
  
It was nine o'clock, and Videl and I had spent most of the time playing on the computer and watching television- there was nothing much to do seeing as it was deathly cold outside and we couldn't very well train inside the house.  
  
We were playing Counter-Strike, but had grown bored with it; I kept getting kicked from the servers for "too many head shots", and Videl kept making people think she was a guy-just to confuse them- and then say something really girlish, something she would probably never in her natural born life utter as if she said it all the time.  
  
It was funny, and everything seemed to have a nice thick layer of happiness draped around us then. When I finally tired of the computer, I got up from where I was sitting, which was at the side of the computer, and walked over to the window. I wanted to see how much the snow had gained over time. I grabbed the dark blue drapes, and pulled them back. There was a nice layer of snow building on the tiny crevice on my window. There was a thin layer of frost around the edges of the glass. I looked out into the darkness, where there was a pool of light from the window shining on the snow-white ground below.  
  
For a minute, I thought I saw a whitish figure move in the snow, but I thought it was probably the snow settling, or wind blowing on it, giving the illusion of something moving. But, then I saw something black move almost methodically toward me, and I shook my head. The illusion the snow was playing disappeared. Videl looked towards me, logging off of the computer as she did so.  
  
"Gohan, are you alright?" She asked, obviously alerted by my shaking head. I quickly covered this up.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. The snow was just hypnotizing me, I guess," I said, and I gave out a nervous chuckle. Why would I do such a thing-to give out a nervous chuckle? That was, to me, something of a dumb blunder that I often did around people. God, sometimes I could just feel the embarrassment smacking me in the face. All the ignorant things I've done in my life; down to the tiniest details, have plagued me for a number of years. Such as the incident with Frieza, when Vegeta gave me that Sayain armor that I believe is still under my bed. I thought of myself as indestructible, but of course the irony is that I almost got killed several times after that. I felt embarrassed for myself, and for the frog that was watching me act like a complete moron.  
  
Okay, so maybe I wasn't fine, but I think that at least right then, I was fine. A bit.  
  
"Well, alright. I just thought you might've gotten a headache or something," She said just a bit too nonchalantly, but I was fine with it. I mean, she must've cared at least a bit to ask.  
  
"I'm kinda bored. You wanna watch a movie? I just got one a couple of days ago," I asked her, as she got up from her seat, and stretched her arms up in the air.  
  
"Sure," She said, "I could go for a movie. What's it called?" I smiled, and walked over to my bookshelf. It was still wrapped in plastic. I grabbed it off of the bookshelf- it was sitting by my Bible- and I showed it to her. Videl laughed.  
  
"South Park? Oh, man, I've never seen this movie!" Videl said, turning the box over. She smiled at the pictures on it. Her favorite character was the little Saddam personage.  
  
"You've never seen the movie? I saw it about a year ago. I downloaded the thing," I told her, "You can find really cool stuff on these People to People things."  
  
"Yeah, I had one of those, but my father kept thinking that I was going to hurt his reputation if I downloaded something really illegal and got arrested for it. So he made me get rid of it." Videl told me, and for a few seconds a scowl scrambled across her face at the mention of her dad.  
  
"Ah, well. You can always use mine. Or you could just download it again and not tell your dad about it," I recommended to her. She gave the DVD to me, and smiled.  
  
"How do you think I get all this great stuff on my computer?" She smiled-almost evilly- and began to walk out my door. "Well, if we're going to watch that, don't you think we should get some snacks?" Videl said, and I nodded my head. I felt kind of helpless, because she had this weird manipulative way of pulling me out of conversations to get going for something we had been talking about doing. And I've just confused myself, but I guess I didn't care. I took one last look out my window, and saw a little white light briefly come about, then disappear. I thought it was a snowflake that caught some light, and went after Videl.  
  
We walked into my kitchen, and I put the DVD down on the table. We began to grab a lot of snacks, (I was getting more than Videl,) and snatching out sodas and drinks from the fridge. Really, I don't know why we'd be getting all this stuff, considering the movie is only 90 minutes long...But I guess it doesn't really matter that much.  
  
We had sat down at the couch, and having pulled the coffee table up to half an arm's length, we placed our food and drinks there, and plopped down on the couch. I had already put the movie in the DVD player. There's a thing about sitting here, watching a movie with friends that makes it feel more special than if we went to a movie theater. It feels like the movie is talking to just the two of us, and not a crowd of people that have way too much popcorn. All we had were some Tostitos and sauce, some Cokes and a few other miscellaneous items.  
  
I started the movie, and the opening theme song came in. It was very silly how they started it-in case you didn't notice- Stan had wiped the snow that a deer had peed on off of the log. I had just noticed this, and I laughed at it. Not because it was very funny, but for two reasons: One, Stan didn't even seem to notice. Second, I was laughing because I couldn't believe I had missed it.  
  
"Gohan, what are you laughing about?" Videl asked me, as Stan was singing about. I looked at her, paused the movie real quick, and said, "I just now noticed that Stan had wiped some pee covered snow off of the log. It's not really that funny," I said, covering my tracks a bit, "But I just never really noticed until now." She nodded her head, and I un-paused the movie. As the movie progressed, I couldn't help but notice a certain 'vibe' going through it, as if its whole purpose was to mock everything it could, which it did quite viciously in some parts. Although the thought of Satan being gay is very funny and at the same time putting him down, I couldn't help but think that maybe that also empowers him, or for some context to this matter.  
  
The thing is, in the general (educated) Christian beliefs, Satan has no power, unless you acknowledge him. So, by undermining him and basically making a fool of him, is that not also the same as acknowledgement? And those who deny the presence of God, (atheists,) are they merely just not acknowledging His presence? Satan is there, of course, but so is God. The atheists had accidentally run into a bad loophole, I thought, since by the thought that Satan is there but not acknowledged, the same can be said for God, although His power does not need to be acknowledged for it to work.  
  
I am uneducated in the matters of religious philosophy; in fact, I should not be even dealing in the matter, but for some unknown reason I do anyways. But what I can't help but find odd and reassuring at the same time is that Vegeta had once told me that a lot of the alien races believed that there is a God, even if they didn't have the wonderful divine influence that so often occurs here on Earth. We take His influence for granted, (massively, I might add,) and still we are very shaky on His presence. But these advanced alien creatures, probably far more superior than the humans, even they acknowledge God. It is not too surprising that when He created the universe, that He spread His presence all over, and not just to us.  
  
And yet, many of us still do not acknowledge Him, but belittle ourselves to the trifle recesses of idolism. It's so fucking stupid.  
  
I've clearly gotten ahead of myself-as I do a lot now- but by the time I had thoroughly thought this through, the movie was half-way done, my mind only partially paying attention to it, and laughing when Videl laughed, just for sake to show that I was paying a little bit of attention. And damn it all, I didn't stop to breathe a bit. Goten had snuck downstairs, and had been secretly watching the movie. I finally noticed when he gave out a mucus filmed hoarse cough. I glanced up, and saw him coughing his head off, in his little blue pajamas. I didn't bother to pause the movie, because I was particularly concerned with his coughing. Videl apparently was also, so we both got up, and climbed the small set of stairs to meet him.  
  
I almost had half a mind to chew him out, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. He just looked so miserable. His nose was swollen, he couldn't stop coughing-most of the time it was hoarse- and he had bags under his eyes, despite the plentiful rest and food he had been getting.  
  
"Goten! Why are you up this late at night?" Videl asked him, giving him this sweet, almost motherly look. I loved that look. But right then most of my attention was focused on Goten.  
  
"I was just getting up to take my medicine. I always take it around eleven o' clock," He said in between sniffles and small coughs. It was weird, but he could go from sounding like he had been fine, to a deteriorated form like this.  
  
"Oh, that's right. Did mom already go to bed?" I asked Goten, and he nodded his head. I rubbed his hair, and gave him a warm smile.  
  
"Well, don't worry. Let's go into the kitchen and we'll get you your medicine," Videl said, and Goten reached up his arms, and he clamped onto me. He liked it when I carried him. The three of us made our way into the kitchen, and I set him down on the counter near the sink. Videl asked me where the medicine cabinet was. I pointed it out to her, and told her it was the yellow bottle with the green label. She looked in and fumbled about for a few seconds, while I fixed up some water for Goten. Videl brought me the container.  
  
"Thank you, Big Brother! Thank you, Videl!" Goten exclaimed, maybe a little better by just having comfort with him. He took the two gel pills and swallowed them down, water and all. We both smiled at him, and he yawned loudly.  
  
"I'm getting sleepy," I said, and I was. I guess I was tired from not being able to do anything today.  
  
"Well, you go turn the movie off, and I'll take Goten upstairs, okay?" Videl offered, and I refused and said I would do both, but she insisted. After a little bit of mild arguing, we came to the decision that we would put Goten to bed first, then I would just come and turn the movie off.  
  
Videl grabbed Goten off of the counter. He was straddled to her waist. He kind of looked like a monkey, the way he was hanging. We walked over to the stairs, and trotted up them. I wasn't actually tired, but I was kind of exhausted. Over what, I'm not sure. We walked down the hall with the blue carpeting, our footsteps padded. I walked in front of Videl, and when we reached Goten's room, I creaked the door open.  
  
I peeked in, and I swear to God that for a brief moment I saw a whitish figure standing behind Goten's bed, but as I opened the door more, it disappeared as quickly as I saw it. I cocked an eyebrow, but decided that again my eyes were playing tricks with me.  
  
We walked in, and I turned Goten's little lamp on. It sat on a small dresser opposite of his bed. Videl placed Goten on his bed, and I came over and pulled the covers over him. He was out like a light.  
  
"Well, he sure did conk out quickly," Videl smiled. I crossed my arms, and smiled as well, keeping in mind to whisper in a small voice as Videl did.  
  
"Yeah, that medicine will put him to sleep really fast. He was probably tired from going out with my mom to get groceries and shop, too," I added. Videl nodded, and a little glint of happiness I saw streak across her eyes.  
  
"He looks really peaceful when he's sleeping. Not at all like that little speed demon I'm used to," Videl commented, as I walked over to turn off the lamp.  
  
"Yeah. He looks just like my dad when he's asleep," I told her, and she looked at me weird. I hadn't turned the lamp off yet.  
  
"I don't think I've ever seen a picture of your dad, Gohan. What does he look like?" She asked me, and I plainly pointed to Goten.  
  
"Like that, only taller and a little leaner." And it was so true. He was an exact mirror image of dad.  
  
After I had turned the light out and walked into the hall, Videl began to talk to me.  
  
"Gohan, what ever happened to your father? I mean, y'know. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But I guess I'd still like to know seeing as your one of the best friends I've ever had. I guess I just feel like you're keeping little secrets from me," I could hear her say, but it was so dark in that hall that I couldn't see her even if she was barely two feet away. And she seemed so held back by her words. I could just tell by her constant apologizing, the way her ki would make little jumps every now and then while she talked...And I don't think where we were standing, cramped up a bit in the small hallway, was I at liberty to speak of family secrets then.  
  
"Umm, well, you know he's dead," I said, scratching my head, and I pressed up against the wall to scoot down to my room.  
  
"Duh. Everyone in the entire school knows your father's dead. But what I want to know is how he died, Gohan. What was your father like?" She asked, and her voice waned. I couldn't tell her how my Father died. It would only bring up more questions, more questions that would put my family's life-and my relationship with Videl- at stake. I just couldn't bear to tell her I'm a fucking half-alien.  
  
"I just... I just can't. It would be too hard on you," I said, and she looked at me with this kind of awe. The kind of awe that said, 'I can too take what you say'. Or, 'I can't believe you just said that in front of me,' well, maybe it was both.  
  
"What do you mean, Gohan? I just wish that you'd stop being so reluctant to tell me anything. I promise that I wouldn't stop liking you just because your father might've died in a dishonorable way. And besides, I never told anyone you were Sayaman, although I'm really glad you stopped being that character," She looked down at the floor. I followed suit, and breathed a heavy sigh. Should I tell her? Yeah. But what if she can't accept it? Well, she accepted the fact that I'm extremely strong, could fly, and shoot "light" from my hands... Maybe she'd still love... err, like me.  
  
"Alright, I'll tell you. And I'm only going to tell you this because I trust you. I trust you more than anyone I've ever known, even my father," And it was the truth. She looked at me, and I saw a respective glint in her eyes.  
  
"Let's go somewhere where we won't be cramped in, though. I'm going to need some air," I said, and she nodded. We walked and found our way to my room, where I opened the door. I had left a lamp on that sat on my desk, so when we walked in I-and Videl too- were a bit blinded by the light.  
  
Our eyes quickly adjusted. My bed was neither small nor incredibly large; just a normal sized bed with a blue cover. I sat down on it, and pulled my legs up, sitting Indian style. Videl did the same thing, sitting across from me. I breathed in deep, and collected my thoughts. Where to start? Ahh, of course, when my father died.  
  
"My Father died," I began, "During the Cell Games. He was killed fighting Cell," Videl looked at me a little weird, but there was something there that I knew she understood.  
  
"And he sacrificed himself so I could live. So my friends, family, everyone could live. After that, though, Cell still lived. He still had the world in his pale gray hands," I choked, and had to hold back my almost indescribable hatred for Cell. My right hand began to shake with the rage that came on.  
  
Videl grabbed my right hand in her left. My body tensed, but then soothed.  
  
"It's okay, Gohan," She told me.  
  
Why the hell are the people I love always wrong?  
  
A/N: I graduated 8th grade! And if you're wondering, the story will pick up later. It's still developing. Aye? Also, I need to know if anyone out there has a good knowledge of Photoshop. I'm structuring a comic based on the Metallica song, "One", and I sure could use assistance in the department of backgrounds, art direction. Etc. I'll be handling the character models and script, but I need someone to help me manage the comic layout since I suck at Photoshop.  
  
Thanks, and expect an increase in chapter production since I'm out for the summer! 


	6. Chapter Six

A/N: Yo, I know these things detract from the whole reading experience, but I've got to reach a point here with good ol' PsYcHo. The reason why Gohan is contemplating so much about God and everything here, is because in this story he and his family are Christian, annoying references of Kami aside. And also, I'm sorry if that thing sprung out from South Park- It's really just the way I want Gohan to think throughout the whole story. I want him to accentuate small points in things a lot. The way I see it-and how I incorporate it into the story- is that these Supreme Kais are no more than really funky arch-angels, here to protect the general sides of the universe from danger. That's how it is in this story so don't get too excited. Oh, one more thing: When Gohan mentions Vegeta once telling him that a lot of races in outer space believe in God, that was actually an interception by my original "RI Theory" Saga. Once again, sorry for the annoying Author's Note. (By the way, steal my idea for RI Theory, and I'll kill you. No, seriously. I will. I've been working on the PLOT of it for three years. Don't fuck with me.)  
  
Chapter Six  
  
I looked up at Videl's eyes. She had such beautiful eyes. And her smile...warmth was traced in that smile. She was not a cold- hearted evil teenager that had a rich, arrogant father; she was a wonderful girl with a strikingly different personality. I hate that no one could ever see past this.  
  
"I'm sorry, Videl. I guess..." I couldn't finish the sentence. I just couldn't bear to say anything right then. My heart was pounding furiously at the notion of my father's death, and just how much Cell had ruined my life.  
  
"Gohan, I won't care if you have to cry about it. Look, I cried and sobbed over my mother when I watched her die out in that ice cream shop, so you know it's alright that you can tell me everything that you need to tell me," I wish I could. Maybe...maybe I should. Yes, it would be the right time, now.  
  
"Okay, I will. But don't hate me,"  
  
"I won't," She interrupted.  
  
"Well, this is how it goes...My father, after he-he died, we thought Cell was dead...because my father sacrificed himself to make Cell die. And ... And it didn't work. Cell came back. That asshole came back and nearly killed Vegeta. Then he challenged me to one last fight. One last little stand-off," Videl looked at me with that little sparkle in her eyes, the little sparkle she only reserved for me. I kept going on.  
  
"And I, oh, please don't think me of a crazy fool...but I killed Cell, Videl. Not your father. Everything he's told you about him being so powerful is a lie. A huge lie. All the fame he's gained...I didn't want it. I just let him take the credit," Videl was shocked, I could tell just by the look on her face. But it was an expectant shock, like an 'I knew it this whole time but I was never sure.'  
  
"Gohan...I can't believe it, but it's true! I have to believe you. You're the only person that really cares for me, except for my mother and brother. And it's hard to accept...it's hard to accept that my fame and fortune is a lie. And I shouldn't believe you, Gohan. But I do!" She was almost going a little nuts over it. Her right hand shook with shock. I grabbed it into both of mine.  
  
"It's okay. I know it's odd, and it's an odd feeling knowing something you shouldn't. I know of plenty of things that should not even be uttered to a grown man. But Videl, it's going to be fine. I'm going to be right here for you. Even if your father does horrible things to you, I'll help you stand up to him," I told her. She was strong, stronger than her father, and I knew she could stand up to him. But I told her I would be there. So I had to stay with this promise.  
  
"It's just hard, Gohan. Hard knowing that my whole life is a lie," She looked a way from me. I tilted her head gently to let her look straight into my eyes.  
  
"Your life is not a lie. If anyone's life is a lie, it's your father's. Your father, Videl...I know this isn't easy for me to say to you, belittling him like this, but I believe that your father would do anything to get what he wants," She nodded her head.  
  
"He's such an asshole. All those women...they mean nothing to him. He probably even thought the same way about my mother," Well...I couldn't know if that was true or not. In fact, I have no idea what Videl's mother looks like, other than her picture in that hallway.  
  
"That may be. But what matters, is that your mother loved you, Videl. She would do anything for you, you know that," I told her. She got this sad little smile on her face, and sighed.  
  
"Yes, that's true. She was always there for me. Even when my father was going on another stupid glory-rampage, she still would stay home and be there for me and my brother," Videl told me.  
  
"That sounds like my father. Whenever he could be home, he was always there to be with me. He never knew Goten, though. I was so worried the night before the Cell games that I could barely get any sleep, so you know what I did?" Videl looked at me, question semi-exercised on her eyebrows.  
  
"I looked at the snow outside. It was snowing just like this, seven years ago. And I thought of all those people he killed. And all of them were little snowflakes, each of them different, unique. And I always thought of snow as such a beautiful phenomenon. So I took it to heart that all those snowflakes are life. Life's beautiful, Videl. It's a round-a-bout way of saying it, but I wanted to protect that snow. If I didn't, then Cell would destroy the Earth's snow. All kinds of its snow, from the animals to the actual thing. I couldn't let him do something like that to the planet. So the next day when all of our gang went out to the middle of Utah, I had only one thing on my mind. Snow," Videl smiled at me, and I almost was crushed under the smile.  
  
"Is that way you like the snow so much, Gohan? Because it reminds you of how precious life can be?" She asked.  
  
"Yeah, but not how precious it can be. How precious it is, Videl. The only things in this world undeserving of God's Breath are those who take their lives for granted. Like your father," I muttered at the end, resenting to even utter of her father now. She nodded in agreement.  
  
"I wish he would just die. And he's going to be home tomorrow evening. I'm going to try and stay as far away from him as possible, and if he comes near me I think I might just punch his lights out," I smiled. She smiled. And then we both said goodnight, and went to bed.  
  
---  
I couldn't sleep. I wrestled with myself in my own bed, my sheets starting to twist into my form, creating a cocoon. God, I hate it when I get tied up in my bed sheets when I roll around like this. Then I decided I was probably just hungry. So, I unraveled myself and got up to get me some milk and cookies, and just watch the television set that was in my room until I fell asleep.  
  
I crept out of my room, and out into the hall. I decided to not use my ki to just float, since I know that my brother has a higher sense of ki when he sleeps. So I silently sneaked down the small stack of stairs, and crept along the short hallway, until I saw that the television downstairs was still on. I walked swiftly, yet quietly, down the stairs, turned it and the DVD player off, then scurried into the kitchen. The kitchen had a big glass sliding door that walked out onto the backyard, which had a spectacular view of the mountain. This was across from the kitchen table.  
  
I walked over to the cabinets and pulled out a cup and a bag of chocolate-chip cookies. I walked over to the refrigerator, grabbed the milk, and went and poured myself some milk.  
  
I was just about to depart to my room when something caught my eye in the sliding glass door. There was no snow falling there, but when I looked in another window just a few feet to the door's left, it was snowing just like it had been before. I placed my milk and cookies down on the table, deciding to investigate a bit. I looked out there, and it was almost like there were invisible barriers that kept the snow from falling there. In fact, it seemed to create a tunnel that led out into the woods of my back yard.  
  
It was unusually warm inside of the "invisible" tunnel. As I walked out into it, and stepped off of the large patio that we have, something strange happened. The whole tunnels brightened; brightened so much to an extent that it was hurting my eyes. Pulses of light beat down the tunnel's pathway, sounding like a large plane going over your head constantly.  
  
When my eyes finally adjusted to the brightness of the tunnel, I could see no more the outside. What I did see was a long tunnel, with whitish- pinkish-blue walls, and marble flooring. Large green lights whipped over my head, barreling down the tunnel every few seconds. I walked a little down the tunnel, and I constantly saw new and unusual things; things such as on the left hand side of the wall, a moving picture of a white crucifix brightening so much in the face of a dark-looking creature, that the whole part of the wall lit up, and when the light receded, there was no dark figure, and no crucifix, but a white silhouette of a man with his hands outstretched.  
  
When I walked on further, I saw a picture of an angel, beautifully painted, in the process of striking down an evil demon with its sword. And I couldn't help but think: What does it mean? Am I imagining this? What the hell is going on?  
  
"I told you that you think to much, Gohan!" I heard a voice admirably call out from behind me. For a minute I froze in shock, like I wasn't supposed to be here, but I calmed down- only a little. It was Larry, I knew. I turned around, and there he was, merely six feet away from me.  
  
"Did you make this Larry?" Was what I first asked him. He smiled at me, and walked toward me. He had his cane in his left hand. He was only two feet away from me now.  
  
"Of course not, Gohan. This is my boss's work. He loves building tunnels. In fact, he even built a subway system of tunnels, throughout the whole universe! I guess you could say he's got a lot of time on his hands, eh, Gohan?" Larry laughed, and I cocked an eyebrow at him.  
  
"Larry, what is all this? And did you communicate with me through my dream?" I asked him.  
  
"Of course I did, Gohan. How else would you have known my name is Larry? Hah! Well, to answer the first question, this is called a Networking Tunnel. My boss made this one. This tunnel connects you to all the pathways and timeframes of the universe. It can bring you to observe any time you want. But you can only observe. Besides," He kept on, and I was entranced in his words, "You can't change time. You know your whole incident with the Future Trunks? Well, he came from a totally different universe. Bulma graciously skipped him the details of alternate universe manipulation. Anywho," Larry spun his cane around, "If that future Trunks hadn't have come, Goku still would've survived the heart-disease, Cell would still have come here by normal means, and your father still would've died protecting you," I cringed at the words of my father's untimely death.  
  
"But what about the future Trunks? He died while fighting Cell. Wouldn't that have changed history?" I asked him, and he chuckled.  
  
"Gohan, Trunks was meant to come there anyways. All those things I said would've occurred had he not come, but it was already pre-written in stone that he was to come there. Time is written in stone, Gohan. You cannot change it, for it's predetermined. So, in other words, I guess you could say Trunks was fated to come to your universe, die, and be brought back by Shenlong," I wasn't confused, actually. In fact, I was more intrigued by the whole workings of what he was saying.  
  
"Okay...then, what does all of it mean, Larry? Showing me all these things, giving me that creepy dream...what's it all for?" Questions, questions, questions!  
  
"Gohan, you have a special gift. You are an Assassin for God. Or the Secret Service of God, if you will. You've got an important mission that must be completed, or else you can kiss everything goodbye...well, until God remakes it. But I'd bet He'd rather you take care of this,"  
  
"What am I supposed to do? And I'm guessing it involves killing, right?" I hated killing.  
  
"Yes, but I know you hate killing. That's alright. You'll want to kill him. After what he's done, you'll really want to kill him," I couldn't find that to be possible.  
  
"Then maybe I should show you, Gohan." The whole room began to move us forward, so quickly and swiftly that my hair was being blown back, my clothes waving in the wind. It made an abrupt stop at a seeming dead end.  
  
"Is this the end of the tunnel?" I muttered.  
  
"No, this is just a moment in time that we needed to stop at. Look at the screen in front of you, and it would be best for you to be prepared for what you see." I didn't know what I was going to see, so how could I prepare myself?  
  
The room flickered, and suddenly I was outside of an ice-cream shop, on a bright sunny day. I could see about three tables sitting outside of the shop, each one filled with at least two persons. I saw a mother and daughter sitting and eating their icecream, the mother strikingly beautiful, and her daughter looked so cute and innocent...  
  
I walked up to them, but they didn't notice me. Then I remembered that this was just an observation. I can't do anything. I don't even exist to them. I saw a black sedan pull up by the ice cream shop, a harmless car. The mother stood up, telling her daughter to hold her ice cream for a few moments. The lady walked up to the car, and asked the person inside what they wanted. I was guessing that the person inside had gestured to her.  
  
Then I heard a loud popping sound ring out several times, and I saw blood flying out of the back of the mother. I could hear people screaming in fear of getting shot. The sedan peeled out and drove off. The woman lay on the ground, a puddle of blood forming around her. I could see about three shot wounds in her abdomen. It was sickening to look at the blood slowly bubbling out, and the stone cold eyes staring blankly into the sky.  
  
I was going to throw up from the sheer disgusting look of it. I knew it. But I didn't, because I was too busy feeling sorry for the little girl who had dropped her ice cream cones and ran over to her mother, gazing at her and pushing her to "wake her up". I could hear the slight whimpers of distress as she held her mommy.  
  
"Why the hell are you showing me this, Larry? Why would you even show this to anyone? Turn it away! It's..." I looked at the screen. The little girl had blue eyes and black hair. And the way she was crying...the cracked cry that sounded held back. And she had pigtails.  
  
Oh my God.  
  
"There's one more thing I have to show you. The rest is for you to figure out." Larry said. I turned and glared at him.  
  
"Why don't you just tell me what the everlasting FUCK is going on? You're showing me a scene from time where Videl's mother was shot to death?! What does it mean, Larry? What does it mean!?" I yelled at him, and I shook my fists at Larry.  
  
"Gohan, watch your language. This is a passage of God."  
  
"How can this be a passage of God if you're showing someone getting their guts shot out?" I ranted on and on, but Larry just stood there.  
  
"God shows you what you need to see."  
  
"I don't need to see this. How will I face Videl tomorrow, having seen first hand her mother get shot to death?"  
  
"You'll manage, Gohan. God never gives someone a task that they cannot handle."  
  
"I don't know if I can handle this, Larry."  
  
"Gohan...Maybe you're not ready for the next image you have to see, yet. The next one is possibly even more gruesome. Perhaps you should go and get some rest." I had to give a sigh of relief and a menacing glare at Larry.  
  
"...Okay. Fine. Just tell me...What am I supposed to do?" Larry smiled that pure white smile.  
  
"It's how you see it, Gohan. It's all in the eye of the beholder," Larry disappeared with a flash, and with him a brief moment of white engulfed me.  
  
Then, I woke up in my bed, at 6:06.  
  
It was only a stupid dream.  
  
A/n: Well, I know this one is really short, but I think it gets the point across. This is the one where everything starts to pick up, so hold your breath, people. 


	7. Chapter Seven slightly revised

Chapter 7  
  
For some odd reason I woke up this morning, feeling strangely bogged down with the weight of worry. With worry I didn't know, but it was definitely there. I wiped my hand through my hair, as little clips of the dream came rushing into my head like a tornado hitting a house.  
  
Those little shots of Videl crying over her mother...so disturbing and so real that I almost could see it right before my eyes. The racked, bloody mother, eyes glazed over in a death stare...  
  
The thoughts were sickening me. And the bad thing about it is, is even though it was a dream, it was so real and shocking, that I could barely think of anything but it. My head was hurting from it, pounding in a vicious manner. I could feel my temples throbbing back and forth, up and down.  
  
I got out of my bed, straightened out my shirt and pajama pants, and stretched. It made my head hurt worse when I stretched, but it calmed down after I laid my arms by their sides. I looked and saw that the television was off.  
  
That was creepy. The television was supposed to be on...then I looked around my room. It was pretty clean, despite a few cluttered items here and there...but no cookies and milk. There weren't even crumbs, or an empty glass.  
  
I was starting to feel scared, only out of reason that maybe that dream was real. That maybe I might've not dreamed going into one of those...what did he call them? A subway system for the universe is what I got from it. But I was definitely a bit knocked around. Unless...Unless I dreamt getting the cookies and milk as well. And going and turning off the television...Yes, I must've done that.  
  
Well, I walked out of my room; almost warily, as I knew my mother wouldn't be up until 7:30 at least. My breathing was unusually rigid and unstable. The hallway was tinted a dark, gloomy gray, looming and grainy to the eyes. I slipped down the hall to my brother's room, since I checked on him almost every time he didn't get up before me.  
  
I creaked his door open, and looked inside. My head hurt. It must've been causing me to have my imagination get the best of me. There was something sitting near Goten. I couldn't tell what it was. But I sensed from it a thick aura of trickery and deceit clouded so much that I could not tell what it was.  
  
It had to be the headache. The... "thing" was peering at my little brother with silent blue eyes, and it was shrouded in some kind of black liquid.  
  
My brother was in danger! I had to help him! But there was something keeping me back; almost making me feel helpless standing there, frozen stiff in a headache induced fear, almost tangible physically to me.  
  
I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt something poke my back. I reeled back and jumped around, smacking my head on the top of the doorframe as I did so. My heart thumped quickly, and did so even more when I adjusted my vision to see that it was Videl. Little clips of seeing her cry over her mother's dead body flipped in my head.  
  
"Woah, Gohan, I'm not gonna kill you. Calm down," She yawned out, stretching. I sighed, but then was startled again that I had lost focus on the thing that might be hurting Goten.  
  
And now, it begins.  
  
The creature wasn't there. No trace of it what so ever- no ki trail, no kind of spiritual vibe from where it stood. And damnit, my head hurt...  
  
"Uhh, Gohan? Is there something in your brother's room?" Videl asked me, trying to peer over my shoulder.  
  
"Uhh, well...I saw something sitting next to him," I stuttered as I crept in to investigate further.  
  
"You must be seeing things, Gohan. I don't see anything in here, other than a few creepy looking stuffed toys," She whispered, both of us careful not to wake Goten up.  
  
"I'm serious! I could feel his ki. It felt nasty, Videl. Pure, intoxicated evil, is what it felt like," She looked at me kind of weird.  
  
"Gohan? Are you alright?" She asked me. No, I wasn't, thanks very much.  
  
"Err, I'm fine. I've just got a headache. It might be messing around with my senses. I think I'll just go take some Advil...or something," I trailed off, looking under Goten's bed to see if it may have crawled under there. It was probably futile thinking this, seeing as I would notice its ki. But what the hell, you know?  
  
I checked around Goten's bed a little more, never really taking note that Videl was scrutinizing me over in a corner. After many failed attempts to find it, I finally gave it up. It must've been the headache. I never really got headaches, so I wasn't exactly used to them.  
  
"Err...Okay. I'll just go get some Advil. What're you doing up so early?" I asked Videl as we walked out into the hallway, Videl silently shutting Goten's door on the way out.  
  
"I heard a lot of walking around out here. It woke me up, so I went out to see what it was. But now I'm not even sleepy anymore, thanks to you," She gave a mock sense of sarcasm, that I immediately picked up on.  
  
"Sorry for breaking your beauty sleep," I rolled my eyes, and walked down the staircase. I could hear her make the noise when someone sticks his or her tongue out behind me. I smiled, and walked into the kitchen, suddenly feeling a lot better...  
  
I walked over, not even seeing the table, and grabbed a bottle of Tylenol out of the medicine cabinet. I took about two or three pills, and then put the bottle back. My head throbbed a bit, but I figured I would be okay.  
  
...Until I saw the cookies and milk sitting on the table. That's when I thought I would throw up, and in fact, I did. I ran over as quickly as I could, trying not to heave as I went, and feeling that rushing gut feeling wrench up into my mouth. I regurgitated nothing but stomach acid and a few pieces of snacks into the sink, feeling myself being emptied and weak afterwards. It stunk to high heavens, and I dared not look at it. I felt that nasty taste and the stinging in my throat and nose as I bent over the counter, my headache throbbing to its full intensity.  
  
It was still snowing outside, and after a while of leaning over the sink, trying to get myself recollected, I was again hit with a blow of surrealism- the throw-up flickered from dark red to its normal state constantly. I coughed with a growl, feeling weak in the knees. Maybe since I had just thrown up (which I'd only done once for real-any other time it was blood from slight internal bleeding,) and it was so shocking to me, that's why it looked like blood that was flickering.  
  
But it was so real, the blood hallucination. I couldn't think very straight; all I knew was that the dream was real, and that I was hunched over in my kitchen, having just thrown up all over the place. And for what? For realizing that I had seen a woman brutally shot to death, and then seeing her daughter crying over her dead body, with blood getting on her hands as she rocked her dead mother.  
  
That's what made me sick. I was scared, now; I was so frightened and confused over what it all meant that I fell over and was sitting down in the floor of the kitchen, glancing around and feeling for ki to get my mind off of things. There was that damn flickering again, the flickering of the lights. My breathing was heavy, ragged.  
  
I coughed, and refused to move, just because I was so engulfed in my state at that point that I didn't even know I could move. I could still smell the vomit from here...and the flickering was helping to intensify my fear. Fear of what, I'm not sure. But I think something was there that shouldn't be.  
  
I started to convulse, and I think I went into a small state of shock; oh, where was Videl!? I was so scared then! The room was turning into itself, and darkening, and darkening...I needed someone to help me! I felt sick and empty! Where was my mommy? I was so scared!  
  
I backed into the corner of my cabinets, crunched up. There were things here that were evil and menacing, and made me feel disgusting and empty on the inside. I was crying in fear of what I was seeing, and there was just this thing about the room that made it horrible. I couldn't get up to flee from the place, for I was in shock, and from this shock I was helpless.  
  
All I could do was sit there and cry from the evil presence that I felt, the room feeling to twist and contort to the evil.  
  
"Gohan," I heard a distant voice call to me, but I was barely in tune to it.  
  
"Gohan?" Now the voice had a questioning accent to it, and I hid myself more.  
  
"Gohan!" The voice wailed out, and I scrunched down as much as I could, feeling like a little mouse cornered by a cat. I felt something grip me, and I reeled back, but I felt so weak that I was unable to pry myself from it. I gave up quickly, not sure what to do. Tears and the twirling room clouded my eyesight.  
  
There I felt something embrace me that was warm and comforting, but I was like stone, and I almost felt hypnotized by fear. I couldn't focus my ki to anything but the evil presence I felt.  
  
"Gohan...Gohan speak!" I could hear so far away, so distant and quiet to me. But I understood. I was so scared that the only thing I could do was mutter out a few words. I don't even remember what they are. But now...Now I wasn't sure what I was seeing or hearing. There was a black...thing with menacing blue eyes and the golden numbers 3:16 inscribed on its forehead, coming towards me with a pistol in its left hand. Why would I be afraid of a pistol? The whole notion of it seemed absurd, seeing as if a bullet hit me it would just bounce off; but I was scared out of my mind.  
  
The thing was standing right up next to me, its gun pointed in between my eyes. My breathing was no longer heavy, or ragged; rather, it was calm and soothed. But I held my breath, as I heard the clicking of the hammer being pulled back on the gun as the thing pulled the trigger. I braced myself-for what reasons unknown to me- and when I heard the blast ring out, everything flickered, then contorted and twisted. The creature was gone, now, and the kitchen was twirling inward to a black hole, and then...silence. The only thing here was the kitchen, the black hole, and I.  
  
I wanted to be near someone! Someone who could help me get rid of these things infesting me with their evil auras! Someone who actually understood who I was! But there was none but one person to do that. And I had no idea where she was, but I could feel her spirit close to me. I don't know...  
  
"Gohan! Gohan, please say something!" My mind felt a rushing sensation, and the black hole sped toward me at an alarming speed, and I thought it would engulf me, but it did not. It passed through me, and I'm guessing it must've disappeared after that. The kitchen was normal, now- not a single scratch to its surface. And what's odd, I felt nothing when the black hole went through me. Absolutely nothing. No tingle. No sense of "hey, I'm going through a black hole" kind of deals. It was just there to my eyes, and no more.  
  
"Gohan! Gohan! Oh my God, he's almost catatonic..." I could hear someone say almost clearly, but at that point my head still pounded with beat only matched by the greatest of drums. But, I could see my hands and feet, and I could feel like I was alive and not in some kind of odd dream.  
  
Then, blackness surrounded me, enveloped me. I couldn't since anything, but I could feel everything that was happening. I could feel that warmth that was holding me leave me. I felt so cold and distant again. I shivered and convulsed, and I think I might've thrown up again, just out of pure fright and loneliness. Then I felt the warmth come back, holding on to me tighter than ever. I loved that warmth. I could still think, and it made me think of Videl. That comforted me.  
  
"What's wrong with him? Why is he acting like this?" I heard a shrill voice wail, and I perceived it to be my mother's. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother...but man, she can have such an annoying voice sometimes.  
  
"Stop yelling..." I was able to mumble out although I couldn't see anything. There was a little bit of silence.  
  
"Gohan...? Gohan, what's happening to you? Can you hear me?" I heard someone's voice ask me. It sounded reassuring...calm, affectionate. I blushed.  
  
"I saw a man in a white suit," I mumbled, and I felt myself smile. I saw a man in a white suit, and I heard him tell me things that are important.  
  
"Gohan, what did this man do to you?! You're sick, Gohan! We need to get you to the hospital, okay? Your mother has called Bulma to come and pick you up," I loved hearing her voice.  
  
"He...did nothing, he told me important things," I told her. I was out of it. I didn't really think about what I was saying.  
  
"Gohan..." I heard the girl's voice say my name slowly, sadly. I frowned.  
  
"Why are you sad?" I asked her, and then stared into blackness, waiting for an answer.  
  
"It's because...you're..." I frowned harder. I felt sadness permeating off of her as if it were water coming from a fountain.  
  
"There's nothing to be sad about...the man said...Larry said..." I mumbled...and mumbled more. I felt something wet pitter-patter on my head. My head hurts...  
  
"My head hurts...I took medicine for it...but it's not working..." I said.  
  
"Medicine...Which medicine did you take, Gohan?" I heard the voice urgently ask me. I could tell she was worried sick. I thought it was the Tylenol. I took the Tylenol.  
  
"Tylenol...I took the Tylenol..." I may have raised a shaky hand at the bottle that had been opened on the counter. But I am still not sure.  
  
"Gohan...how many did you take?" The voice asked again, and I would've gotten tired of the annoying questions had it been from a different voice.  
  
"Two...two tablets...two deer...." I cried with fright as I saw in my mind the spear headed creature that had the numbers 3:16 inscribed on its head. I felt the warmth tighten around me when I wailed out, and I was comforted a little.  
  
"It's going to be okay, Gohan. Bulma's going to be here soon...soon, Gohan..." I felt that warmth tighten around me more. I was still scared. I knew my eyes were open, but all I saw was black. Why? What could possibly have caused me to get this sick?  
  
~~`~~`~~  
  
That evening, I felt a lot better. I must've fallen asleep waiting for Bulma to come and take me to her hospital. She's the only real doctor I could ever trust, only because of her advanced knowledge of the Sayain body and things surrounding it.  
  
"What happened to me, Bulma?" I asked her as she was looking into my eyes with that tiny flashlight. She flicked it off and put it in her breast pocket.  
  
"Well, Gohan, the only thing that I can tell from it is that you might've had some kind of seizure. But I don't know what caused it," She pondered, as I saw her take out that nasty cold instrument.  
  
"But first, I'm going to run a few breathing tests. Videl told me your breathing sounded like you were suffocating," Well, I could've gathered that.  
  
"Okay, breathe deep for me, please," I breathed in deep, and I absolutely hated that instrument. It felt really cold, almost like dry ice.  
  
"Breathe out," I did as I was told, and this continued while she placed them on different sections of my chest and back for about a minute. After what seemed like an eternity, she put the vile thing over her neck, seeing no more use for it. Thank God.  
  
"Your breathing seems normal...Do you still have a stomach ache?"  
  
"No. I just feel really hungry," I said, and my stomach replied with a ravenous growl. I laughed a little bit, as did Bulma.  
  
"Gohan, can I be quite serious with you?" She asked me.  
  
"Uhh...sure. I guess," I stuttered, and was nervous at what she was going to ask me.  
  
"You were mumbling about a man in a white suit the entire time you were in the helicopter. You kept on repeating that he had given you some information. Was that just part of the seizure, or did you really see a man in a white suit?" Oh, thank God. I thought she was going to ask me about my relationship with Videl.  
  
"Well, about a night or two ago I met a man named Larry while I was going to Videl's house..." I was wondering whether I should tell her the whole story or not...  
  
"Umm...that night I had a dream. A really weird dream."  
  
"Was this when you came over and used my telescope?"  
  
"Yeah. Anyways, I had a really weird dream about him, and all these unusual things. It's one of your regular, 'I have no fucking idea what's going on' kind of dreams," It was okay for me to curse in front of Bulma. She didn't mind at all.  
  
"I see. You know, sometimes those dreams are trying to tell you something," Bulma said to me.  
  
"Sometimes they've got a lot of metaphorical meaning to them. One thing could mean another. Are you sure you ever even met this man named Larry?"  
  
"Of course I'm sure! He even let me into...Umm..." I stalled. Bulma looked at me weird.  
  
"Bulma, you believe in God, right?" I asked her quietly, almost as if it were blasphemy to say such a thing-which is sad, you know?  
  
"Yes, despite all I've seen and heard, I still believe in God. Why?"  
  
"Well...last night, I couldn't really get any sleep, so I decided to go and get myself a snack. Well, when I was down there, I noticed that it wasn't snowing out on the patio. And, uh...I went to go check it out. And then something happened. Everything turned blue, and there were lights all around me...and I was suddenly in a tunnel full of lights."  
  
Bulma stared at me with a graining suspicion. I stopped for a moment, and looked away from her.  
  
"It's okay Gohan. You can go on."  
  
"Well, I walked down the tunnel for a while, since I was really interested in what it was...And then, um... Larry showed up. Out of nowhere. And he told me that several others like it connected the tunnel throughout the universe. That's what he said, at least. He also said that God created the tunnels, and they could be used as portals to look through time."  
  
"He did tell you that you couldn't change time, right? Because I've done a lot of research on it."  
  
"I know you have. You made a time machine for Trunks in an alternate universe. I know. Anyways, he showed me around the tunnels, and then told me I had to do something." I skipped the part with the shooting. It was too gruesome.  
  
"What did he tell you to do?"  
  
"As far as I can tell, it's something really important. But he wouldn't tell me. He only told me that it could mean life or death."  
  
"Hmm.This is odd. Are you sure this happened, Gohan? Are you absolutely positive it wasn't a dream?" She sounded skeptical.  
  
"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. I could feel the wind, the heat, the cold...I was definitely awake. But when everything was over, there was a big white flash and I woke up in my bed, like it was a dream. But there were so many things that had told me that it had actually happened, that it couldn't have been."  
  
"Then why did you have a seizure? Sayains like yourself don't have those unless they're put under extreme duress or worry."  
  
"Well, I had a nasty migraine when I woke up. And I just all around didn't feel good."  
  
Bulma pondered upon this for a while, pulling up a rolling chair to sit in.  
  
"Now, last night you were in a time-tunnel, correct?"  
  
"Yes, I was."  
  
"It might be that since you've entered in to a place where so much information is being passed through, that when your brain gathered it, it had something of a system crash when you woke up. That could be one reason for it. Also, since it is a "Passage of God", it would probably have put a lot of weight on your psychological and spiritual being to be in such a sacred place."  
  
"That's possible. In fact, that might have been. But why such a delayed reaction to it?" I asked.  
  
"Hmm...I don't know. I might have to run a few more tests on you to figure this out. But for now, it looks like you're fine. But, I'm going to have to inject you with something." I squealed. Both my father and I hated needles.  
  
"Oh, don't worry, Gohan. I'm just going to insert this nano-particle into you so I can study how your body reacts for a few weeks."  
  
"That's not what I'm worried about..." I whimpered. Bulma took out a long needle from a cabinet that was to her waist, and filled it with a greenish yellow liquid from a container on the wall. I cringed in discomfort.  
  
"Oh, don't be such a pussy. I know you've taken more pain than this," Bulma rolled her eyes, and gave it a squeeze test.  
  
"That's not the point. I just don't like tiny sharp things going into my body like that," Gahh, barely anyone does. You'd have to be a masochist to actually like it.  
  
"Let me see your arm, Gohan. I have to disinfect the injection spot first," She instructed me, although I don't know why since I already knew the procedure. I reluctantly pushed my arm out, and let her dab it with a cotton ball and some kind of disinfectant (I think alcohol).  
  
"Okay, try not to brace your arm, or you'll snap the needle. These things are hard to replace," I twitched a bit, and tried to stay as calm as possible. I wouldn't be so worried if Bulma weren't so violent about it. I turned my head away as I felt a nasty sharp pain that was thrust into the middle of my arm come and go quicker than a flash. It wasn't that bad, but its bark is worse than its bite.  
  
"There, you see? Nothing bad. Now then, I want you to be careful not to do anything extremely strenuous, because it could potentially throw my monitors off, and the ki that goes through your veins would probably destroy the nano-probe. So no Super-Sayain stunts, okay?" I grunted in annoyance as she placed a small bandage on my arm. I was supposed to have a good training session with Piccolo this week, too. I guess I'll have to tell him that I can't make it.  
  
"Fine. Now will you let me go?" I mumbled with ever growing annoyance.  
  
"No, I've got a few more things to ask you." Oh, just wonderful. I wonder if the next thing she'll be asking me is if I'm going out with Videl!  
  
"What's your situation with Videl?" Oh, damnit!  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, do you just like her, or are you two,"  
  
"Woah! No, I'm pretty sure it's nothing like that. We're just good friends,"  
  
"Well, that's not what I saw this morning. From what I saw when my crew and me got here, she was a nervous wreck. She was almost as bad as you were," Woah...That doesn't seem like her. Why would she be so worried over me...?  
  
"You want me to continue? You look a little knocked," I blinked a bit, and nodded.  
  
"Okay...Well, Videl was sitting right next to you, and almost tore one of my employee's head off because he was "hurting you". Which was probably okay to think since you were screaming out something and twitching pretty badly."  
  
"Ack, I didn't know I was that far off. Are you sure that it was just a regular seizure?"  
  
"Well, yes and no. That's why I put the nano-probe in you. Anyways, your mother had already fainted on Goten's bed. Goten...Oh, brother, you guys need to send him to school soon. He thought you were asleep and having a bad dream," It felt like a bad dream.  
  
"I think my mom was planning to send him to this elementary school in a town nearby next year."  
  
"Well...You were just acting strange, Gohan. You had us all worried, especially Videl. She was running around in the mansion, nervous as hell as my crew and I were helping to get you better. She even asked Vegeta for a cigarette, just to calm her nerves. At least that's what Trunks said," Videl smoking a cigarette seemed really unnatural for me to think. I think that she must've just been in a wild state of panic.  
  
"You revived real quick, Gohan. By the time you were getting proper oxygen, you had practically jumped out of it like you were sleeping. Which is why it worries me so much. I hope this doesn't cause problems at your school."  
  
"Well, I guess that's what the nano-probe's for. But I'm sure I'll be fine. Besides, I don't think I can get much worse. You know how hard it is to kill me psychologically in the first place..." Bulma had done extensive mental testing on my brother and I, focusing a lot on how our brainwaves reacted to pain and duress under many elements.  
  
"It's just better to be careful, sometimes Gohan. Okay, you can get out now. Videl's been waiting out there for about an hour." I blushed severely. I can't believe Videl cared for me this much. But then, I also knew she'd probably hide it...But then, what does that mean? Would it mean that she really doesn't? Or is she just swelled up with so much pride that she can't ever really show it?  
  
I jumped off of the small bed, and stretched a bit. Bulma got up and opened her door, leading both of us out of the medium-sized room and into the hallway. I looked to my left to get out of the hospital wing, and there I saw Videl, halfway asleep in a waiting chair. I could almost feel the smile Bulma made behind me as she brushed by my back and walked to my right. Videl looked so peaceful and serene, I couldn't bear to wake her.  
  
I went and sat down in a chair next to hers, and gently-very gently- tried to coax her. I smiled as she finally awoke, and she sat up straight in her chair, and cracked her neck. The first thing she said was, "Are you alright?"  
  
"Well, on all accounts, Bulma says it was just a bad seizure."  
  
"A seizure? I don't know, it seemed like more than that..." She mumbled. You know, when you wake up from a nap, you always seem like you've wasted a bit of your life away when you wake up, and that's why you feel so groggy.  
  
"That's what she says. I trust Bulma, though." If you didn't, you'd...probably die.  
  
"Did she give you an injection? I noticed there was a band-aid on your arm." I glanced down at my right arm, and kind of shrugged.  
  
"Yeah. It's a little nano-probe that she put in me so she could monitor what goes on in my body for a few weeks. The worst part is, is that I can't even train or do anything with my mentor until the stupid thing in here dies," I complained, and Videl felt my dread.  
  
"I know how you feel. When I broke my leg a few years ago, I was almost bored to death because I was stuck at the house watching television and playing video games. I had absolutely nothing to do."  
  
"God, if I could tell you how many times I've been stuck in my room studying about math when I was ten years old, you'd feel like you were cooped up yourself." Videl gave me a little stare of awe, which was kind of...Errm...  
  
"Hey, I know! Let's go get some food. I'm starving, and I bet you're hungry, too." That about snapped her out of the stare.  
  
"Umm, okay. Man, even when you faced the throngs of Death, all you ever think about is food," Videl rolled her eyes, and both of us got up and made our way to one of the kitchens...which would take a while by just walking, since it's about a 3 blocks-worth walk.  
  
God, Bulma needs to get a smaller house.  
  
A/n: God, I need to update sooner. But don't blame me, blame my friends who've been spending two nights each over here, then me going to Six Flags, then me being a lazy bastard...wait...damn it...  
  
Okay, I hope you like this LONG chapter, (okay, it's only 11 pages...EGH!) And I can assure you, something nasty is gonna happen to that poor nano-probe in the next week (of the story.)  
  
Please keep those reviews up, (especially Psycho and Psycho Ann, who I basically rely on to keep this thing updated at least every two weeks.)  
  
I love ya guys! Peace! 


	8. Announcement not chapter eight

An announcement!  
  
After almost over six months of idleness, I'm coming back to the world of writing! (clapping, clapping), but not to FanFiction.net, unfortunately. I'm actually going to start writing over at FictionPress.com, so if you wanna go read my stuff there, the account name is "SARSInfection". Also, if you're wondering about the future of The Man in the White Suit, well you don't have to worry. I'm completely redoing it from scratch, and instead of Gohan, Videl, and the other DBZ owned characters, it will be completely original characters, with NO SUPERPOWERS WHATSOEVER. So the settings will change a bit, and all that good stuff.  
  
As well, no more stories will be written in FF.net. I feel that I'm taking from the original artist's design, and I'd rather use my own to write with. Besides, let's face it: Fan fiction is just the same old crap (except for a choice few) vomited over and over by the same old people that use the generic screen names (DBZfanb0y122) and only post a few chapters, then say 'screw it' and leave it there to rot and never come back to it.  
  
So as of this moment, I will leave this account open for all of you to come back to the DBZ version of TMITWS, but it will not be updated again, nor will I be using this account on here- or any other account.  
  
Thanks for listening, and be sure to check out TMITWS Original and UNCUT! On FP.com soon. 


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